Americans might easily believe that their privilege of gathering for worship on Sundays without fear of reprisal, attack, or ridicule is the norm for Christian experience. After all, we enjoy the great protections of the First Amendment, “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.” Further, the 18th principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations declares, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.”
But the enjoyment of such religious liberty is far from the reality of many in the world, including states that are members of the United Nations. At this moment, there are brothers and sisters in Christ who risk worshiping in secret lest they be attacked, incarcerated, persecuted, or killed. And there are those in America who perceive an insidious and growing effort to curtail the hitherto unquestioned blessing of religious liberty in America.
We should not forget that the American experience of religious liberty is unique in the annals of church history. Philip Schaff, the renowned American church historian of the nineteenth century stated,
The United States furnishes the first example in history of a government deliberately depriving itself of all legislative control over religion, which was justly regarded by all older governments as the chief support of public morality, order, peace, and prosperity. But it was an act of wisdom and justice rather than self-denial. Congress was shut up to this course by the previous history of the American colonies and the actual condition of things at the time of the formation of the national government. The Constitution did not create a nation, nor its religion and institutions. It found them already existing, and was framed for the purpose of protecting them under a republican form of government, in a rule of the people, by the people, and for the people.
He maintained, “The relationship of church and state in the United States secures full liberty of religious thought, speech, and action, within the limits of the public peace and order. It makes persecution impossible.”
Persecution of Christians in the New Testament
A reading of the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation reveals that persecution was normative for the early church. Our Lord’s ministry was questioned, opposed, and attacked until the plots against him brought betrayal and an avalanche of hostility. In his final days, Christ endured false accusation, imprisonment, scourging, and unjust condemnation. This crushing persecution led to public humiliation and affliction beyond comprehension, climaxing in his agonizing crucifixion. He was mocked until his excruciating suffering concluded with his majestic words, “It is finished!” The suffering Savior obediently fulfilled the devastating and triumphant prophecies of Isaiah 52:13–53:12.
We must not forget how our Savior opened his ministry with the magisterial instruction of the Sermon on the Mount. He declared, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:9–12). Jesus’s words reverberate through the New Testament: “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt. 24:9). “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:42). Having aided in the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7, “… Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1–2). Upon his supernatural conversion, Saul, now Paul, experienced continual persecution (Acts 12:1–4; 16:19–25; 23:12), such that several of his epistles were written from prison. Suffering and persecution of early believers called forth needed encouragement by the Epistle to Hebrew Christians (Heb. 10:32–37; 12:3–4), as well as the Apostle Peter’s Epistle to exiled believers (1 Pet. 3:8–18; 4:12–19). Climactically, the two witnesses of the Apocalypse are dramatic eschatological icons of the church’s costly witness for Christ (Rev. 11:1–13).
Religious Persecution: The Early Church, Augustine, and the Reformation
From the close of the New Testament through the conversion of Constantine in 312, the Christian religion faced persecution from Jewish opponents, Roman government officials, and pagan religious leaders. Christian tradition places the martyrdom of the church’s early leaders, Peter and Paul, in Rome.
Roman opposition to Christianity has often been summarized as ten periods of Roman persecution of the church. Augustine in The City of God writes,
I do not think, indeed, that what some have thought or may think is rashly said or believed, that until the time of Antichrist the Church of Christ is not to suffer any persecution besides those she has already suffered—that is, ten—and the eleventh and last shall be inflicted by Antichrist. They reckon as the first that made by Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trajan. . . For as there were ten plagues in Egypt before the people of God could begin to go out, they think this is to be referred to as showing that the last persecution by Antichrist must be like the eleventh plague, in which the Egyptians, while following the Hebrews with hostility, perished in the Red Sea when the people of God passed through on dry land. Yet I do not think persecutions were prophetically signified by what was done in Egypt, however nicely and ingeniously those who think so may seem to have compared the two in detail, not by the prophetic Spirit, but by the conjecture of the human mind, which sometimes hits the truth, and sometimes is deceived.
Augustine affirmed ten Roman persecutions of Christians but denied that they were prophetic based on a typological reading of the Egyptian plagues.
The most famous of these persecutions were those under Emperors Nero (d. 68), Domitian (d. 96), Trajan (d. 117), and Diocletian (d. 305). These periods of severe suffering have produced many accounts of noble martyrs such as Ignatius (d. 140), Polycarp (d. 155), Felicitas (d. 165), and Perpetua (d. 203).
The irony of the ascendancy of Emperor Constantine is that persecution did not stop, even after his victory on Oct. 28, 312 at the Milvian Bridge and his Edict of Milan in February 313 that made Christianity the official religion of Rome. The Constantinian rise of Christianity greatly advanced Christianity, yet sadly, it also placed the sword of persecution into the hands of Christian emperors and Christian bishops. The theological warrant for this was developed by Augustine.
We should not forget that the American experience of religious liberty is unique in the annals of church history.
Augustine’s response to the Roman church’s struggle with the schismatic Donatists was to apply to the civil government Jesus’s words “to compel them to come in” from Luke 14:23. In his letter written in 408 to Vincentius, he writes,
You know me now to be more desirous of rest, and earnest in seeking it, than when you knew me in my earlier years at Carthage, in the lifetime of your immediate predecessor Rogatus. But we are precluded from this rest by the Donatists, the repression and correction of whom, by the powers which are ordained of God, appears to me to be labour not in vain.
With words that were to change history, Augustine reasoned,
You are of the opinion that no one should be compelled to follow righteousness; and yet you read that the householder said to his servants, “Whomsoever ye shall find, compel them to come in.” You also read how he who was at first Saul, and afterwards Paul, was compelled by the great violence with which Christ coerced him, to know and to embrace the truth; for you cannot but think that the light which our eyes enjoy is more precious to men than money or any other possession. This light, lost suddenly by him when he was cast to the ground by the heavenly voice, he did not recover until he became a member of the Holy Church. You are also of opinion that no coercion is to be used with any man in order to his deliverance from the fatal consequences of error; and yet you see that, in examples which cannot be disputed, this is done by God, who loves us with more real regard for our profit than any other can; and you hear Christ saying, “No man can come to me except the Father draw him,” which is done in the hearts of all those who, through fear of the wrath of God, betake themselves to Him. You know also that sometimes the thief scatters food before the flock that he may lead them astray, and sometimes the shepherd brings wandering sheep back to the flock with his rod.
Augustine then further reasoned that persecution could be deployed for godly ends, citing even the example of Christ.
In some cases, therefore, both he that suffers persecution is in the wrong, and he that inflicts it is in the right. But the truth is, that always both the bad have persecuted the good, and the good have persecuted the bad: the former doing harm by their unrighteousness, the latter seeking to do good by the administration of discipline; the former with cruelty, the latter with moderation; the former impelled by lust, the latter under the constraint of love. For he whose aim is to kill is not careful how he wounds, but he whose aim is to cure is cautious with his lancet; for the one seeks to destroy what is sound, the other that which is decaying. The wicked put prophets to death; prophets also put the wicked to death. The Jews scourged Christ; Christ also scourged the Jews. The apostles were given up by men to the civil powers; the apostles themselves gave men up to the power of Satan. In all these cases, what is important to attend to but this: who were on the side of truth, and who on the side of iniquity; who acted from a desire to injure, and who from a desire to correct what was amiss?
Augustine’s “compel them to come in” ultimately led to the deadly persecutions perpetrated by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, the official arm of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to extirpating heresy. Augustine’s interpretation became the historic impetus for the tragic Medieval Christianity’s persecution of Jews, as well as Roman Catholic persecution of Protestants, of Protestants’ persecution of Roman Catholics and other Protestants. Sadly, history records Lutherans driving the Reformed from German lands; Anglicans and Puritans persecuting each other; and formerly persecuted Congregationalists in New England persecuting Quakers. The general practice of nations was to erect boundaries to prevent other creeds from entering the regions where a creed was official. Ejus regio, ejus religio—his region, his religion—was the motto of Reformation era European monarchs.
American Religious Liberty: Roger Williams, William Penn, and the Continental Congress
Religious liberty was birthed in the new world in 1636 on a local scale in Roger Williams’s Providence Plantation in Rhode Island. Williams was deeply committed to the liberty of conscience. Religious liberty in Pennsylvania followed Rhode Island in 1701, enabling the varied religious traditions of Europe to flourish together in the new world.
William Penn wrote of his colony as a “seed of a nation.” Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, was the incubator of his “holy experiment,” yielding religious liberty on a broad scale. In his 1701 Charter of Privileges he wrote,
... no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship: And Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as well as Object of all divine Knowledge, Faith and Worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and persuade and convince the Understandings of People, I do hereby grant and declare, That no Person or Persons, inhabiting in this Province or Territories, who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live quietly under the Civil Government, shall be in any Case molested or prejudiced, in his or their Person or Estate, because of his or their conscientious Persuasion or Practice, nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious Worship, Place or Ministry, contrary to his or their Mind, or to do or super any other Act or Thing, contrary to their religious Persuasion. . . . the First Article of this Charter relating to Liberty of Conscience, and every Part and Clause therein, according to the true Intent and Meaning thereof, shall be kept and remain, without any Alteration, inviolably for ever.
The liberty guaranteed to Philadelphia by Penn’s 1701 Charter of Privileges was celebrated at the jubilee of his Charter. A new bell was needed for the Pennsylvania State House, what we today know as Independence Hall. Ordered from London, it became the icon of liberty around the globe—the Liberty Bell. The name for the bell was inspired by the biblical reference that was placed upon it, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout The Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof. Lev. 25:10.”
Some seventy years later, the First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in September 1774. The theme of liberty remained a major concern. They gathered as the winds of war began to blow. The delegates, particularly those from Massachusetts, were deeply concerned that British actions were impugning their Protestant faith.
Their Congressional Journal reveals a repeated concern for civil and religious liberty. Pertinent statements include [emphasis added]:
1. THAT it is an indispensable duty which we owe to God, our country, ourselves and posterity, by all lawful ways and means in our power to maintain, defend and preserve these civil and religious rights and liberties for which many of our fathers fought, bled and died, and to hand them down entire to future generations.
2. THAT the late act of Parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country now called Quebec, is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and therefore as men and protestant Christians, we are indispensably obliged to take all proper measures for our security.
3. … to act with hostility against the free Protestant Colonies, whenever a wicked Ministry shall chose so to direct them.
4. These rights we, as well as you, deem sacred. And yet sacred as they are, they have, with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated.
5. a family unfriendly to the protestant cause, and inimical to liberty
6. by civil as well as religious prejudices, … to reduce the ancient free Protestant Colonies to the same fate of slavery….
7. … secret enemies, whose intrigues, for several years past, have been wholly exercised in sapping the foundations of civil and religious liberty.
8. … those truly noble, honourable and patriotic advocates of civil and religious liberty, who have so generously and powerfully, though unsuccessfully espoused and defended the cause of America, both in and out of Parliament.
9. free, protestant English settlements.
This palpable concern for religious liberty carried on to the formation of the new nation. Ultimately, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791, ninety years after Penn’s Charter, adopted in Penn’s City. Its sweeping declaration of personal liberties declares, “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 grievance.”
Early American Presbyterians: The Westminster Confession and Religious Liberty
As the colonies wrestled with the centrality of religious liberty for their flourishing, the adoption of religious liberty by Presbyterians in America developed. Presbyterian commitment to this essential freedom is due in large measure to their experiences both in Scotland and in America. When America declared independence, an emigration of some 500,000 Scots-Irish Presbyterians had come to America. They were motivated by a desire for freedom and a quest to escape persecution.
The Constantinian rise of Christianity greatly advanced Christianity, yet sadly, it also placed the sword of persecution into the hands of Christian emperors and Christian bishops.
As I’ve pointed out in an upcoming edition of ByFaith Magazine, Scots Irish immigrant Francis Makemie (1658– 1708) was an early organizer of Presbyterian churches. As he planted churches, he experienced colonial persecution for his ministry and convictions. He was ultimately vindicated, and the news of America’s fledgling religious liberty encouraged a growing exodus to America from Northern Ireland. The persecuted Scots Irish Presbyterians were finally free to practice Presbyterian distinctives in the New World, which included their being relieved from paying taxes for a church to which they did not adhere. By 1706, the first presbytery was established in Philadelphia.
The Westminster Confession of Faith from its beginning in London declared a commitment to the idea of the liberty of the conscience. This concern had been developed by Puritans such as William Perkins and Non-conformists such as John Owen. Adopted in August 27, 1647, Chapter XX.2 in the Confession affirms,
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.
But the centrality of the liberty of conscience had not yet been integrated with a parallel commitment to religious liberty. Thus the original WCF stated in Chapter XXIII.3, Of the Civil Magistrate:
The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.
Following the proposal put before the Synod the previous year, which had been drafted as the new American Constitution was being finalized, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia adopted the completely rewritten chapter of the Confession on May 28, 1788. The revised WCF, Of the Civil Magistrate, XXIII.3 states,
Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.
This vast commitment to religious liberty became a hallmark of American Presbyterians. Thus, Westminster’s founder, J. G. Machen, expressed a deep concern for religious liberty. Machen writes in “Christianity and Liberty, “The real indictment against the modern world is that by the modern world human liberty is being destroyed.” Therein, he calls to mind the liberty defended by Patrick Henry, quoting his courageous line, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Richard S. Brown III explains,
Such was the insistence of the Founding Fathers, whom Machen himself admired and often alluded to in a favorable light. For instance, Benjamin Franklin is oft-quoted for saying, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” Presidents George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison all expressed the same sentiment. ... Machen admired the cause of liberty and the covenantally-formed principles which led to the American Revolution. In his short article entitled “The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age” (1933), Machen referred to this liberty as “the glories of the past,” that “civil and religious liberty, for which our fathers were willing to sacrifice so much.” He admitted that such a noble cause was “something very precious, though very intangible and very difficult of defense before those who have not the love for it in their hearts.” In fact, Machen viewed the remarkable securing of the nation’s religious and civil liberty as being “more valuable than any other earthly thing.”
Those who adhere to the American version of the Westminster Confession of Faith affirm an emphatic commitment to the freedom of the Christian as well as religious liberty for all. With respect to the government, our Confession insists that religious liberty is to be a “full, free and unquestioned liberty.” Hence, Presbyterians from the birth of the United States have been committed to protecting conscience and have grown to an espousal of religious liberty for all.
Theological Rationale for Religious Liberty
What is the biblical source of religious liberty? Christianity began with no direct connection with an earthly state. Jesus taught that we are to render unto God the things that are God’s, and unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s (Matt. 22:21). He paid tribute to the Jewish temple and recognized the Caesar in Rome. However, he did not accept the role as an arbiter to determine the distribution of an inheritance for disputing brothers (Luke 12:14).
Phillip Schaff wrote,
He declared before Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and rebuked Peter for drawing the sword, even in defense of his Master (John 18:11). When the Evil One tempted him with the possession of all the kingdoms of this world, he said unto him: “Get thee hence, Satan” (Matt. 4:10). The apostles used only the spiritual weapons of truth and love in spreading the gospel of salvation. They enjoined obedience to the civil power, even under Nero (Rom. 13:1–7), but they would rather suffer imprisonment and death than obey even their own Jewish magistrate against the dictates of their conscience (Acts 5:29).
The application of the Golden Rule of Jesus in Matthew 7:12 has been a powerful force for the establishment of religious Liberty. Jesus taught us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. If we do not want to be persecuted for our religious beliefs and practices, we should not persecute others for their religious beliefs and practices. The theme of freedom in its various dimensions is an important aspect of biblical religion. This is seen from the Year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:10) and the proclamation of liberty to the captives (Isa. 61:1) to the freedom promised in Christ (John 8:32, 36). It is repeatedly affirmed by the Apostles (Acts 13:39; Rom. 5:15; 6:22, 8:2, 21; 1 Cor. 7:21–23, 10:29; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1; James 1:25; 1 Pet. 2:16; 2 Pet. 2:19; Rev. 1:5). These verses suggest the truth of an aphorism attributed to Horace Greeley, the famous nineteenth-century newspaper man. He declared, “it is impossible to enslave, morally or politically, a bible-reading public.”
Conclusion
Let us, then, resist the coercion of consciences in America. We do so by employing the privilege Americans have in our Constitutional protection of the free exercise of religion. We stop the erosion of religious liberty when we inculcate and celebrate our nation’s legacy of religious liberty. To preserve our extraordinary gift of religious liberty, let us heed a warning issued by Schaff that is even more pertinent in our age than his. Schaff wrote,
Republican institutions in the hands of a virtuous and God-fearing nation are the very best in the world, but in the hands of a corrupt and irreligious people they are the very worst, and the most effective weapons of destruction. An indignant people may rise in rebellion against a cruel tyrant; but who will rise against the tyranny of the people in possession of the ballot-box and the whole machinery of government? Here lies our great danger, and it is increasing every year.
With stunning prescience, Schaff warned,
Destroy our churches, close our Sunday-schools, abolish the Lord’s Day, and our republic would become an empty shell, and our people would tend to heathenism and barbarism. Christianity is the most powerful factor in our society and the pillar of our institutions. It regulates the family; it enjoins private and public virtue; it builds up moral character; it teaches us to love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves; it makes good men and useful citizens; it denounces every vice; it encourages every virtue; it promotes and serves the public welfare; it upholds peace and order. Christianity is the only possible religion for the American people, and with Christianity are bound up all our hopes for the future.
Over half the world’s inhabitants do not have this basic freedom enjoyed by Americans. People are dying because their Christian faith is illegal. Christians are imprisoned and abused because they are not free to believe the gospel and will not violate their consciences before God even at the cost of persecution and imprisonment.
The Westminster Confession of Faith from its beginning in London declared a commitment to the idea of the liberty of the conscience.
Give prayerful thanks to God for our freedom as a people and as Christians. Encourage your church and community to remember in word and deed the sufferings of the persecuted church and persecuted peoples worldwide. Intercede for those who may this very day face torture and martyrdom for their faith and convictions for Christ and his word. May the Liberty Bell’s message once again ring loudly and clearly in hearts, homes, and pulpits, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All The Inhabitants Thereof.”