Church and State

If Christians understand the reasons behind the Constitution prohibiting the establishment of a religion Christians might be relieved instead of being upset. Christians must understand what government establishes or promotes government WILL govern.

In the 17th century the Puritans came to North America to get away from the corruption of the Church of England. The Colony's leaders, both lay and clergy believed the state must prevent error in religion and that the success of the Massachusetts plantation depended upon it.

A well know preacher at the time, Roger Williams, believed that preventing error in religion was impossible, since it required people to interpret God's law, and people would inevitably err. He believed government had to remove itself from anything that touched the man's relationship with God. He thought a society built on the principles Massachusetts espoused would lead at best to hypocrisy, at worst it would lead to the corruption of the church.

The dispute defined for the first time two positions that ran through American history up to today.The proper relationship between government and the church and the relation between a free individual and government authority---the shape of liberty.

Authorities in the Bay feared Roger Williams and ordered him to leave the colony and if he returned he risked execution.

When he left Massachusetts he went south to Narragansett Bay bought land from the Narragansett Indians and established Providence (Rhode Island). He meant it to be a place for people distressed for religion. Several of his friends and their families went with him. Since he owned the land he had political control over the settlement.

When he drafted the compact for Providence he relinquished most of the land---to a common stock---and any political rights, giving himself a vote equal to others. It did not propose to build a model of God's kingdom on earth, as the Massachusetts settlement had done. Nor did it even claim to advance God's will, as had been done by the founding documents of every other European settlement in North and South America, whether English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French. The compact did not even ask God's blessing. It did not mention God at all. While he was a preacher and religious he was convinced "that to assume God embraced any state other than ancient Israel profaned God and signified human arrogance in the extreme."

The other settlers agreed: "We, whose names are hereunder…do promise o subject ourselves in active and passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good…only in civil things."

Government dealt solely with the world. Unlike all other English settlements, this one neither set up a church nor required church attendance. Later it would decree that a simple "solemn profession had as full force as an oath" in court. This was revolutionary. Christians must remember the colonies required church attendance punishable by a fine if they did not attend.Government has no place in establishing or promoting religion.