On Sunday, January 16, many churches celebrated Religious Liberty Sunday. I preached the following sermon to remind the congregation of how Baptists contributed to this freedom and to point out the opportunities God has given us through our liberty.
Choosing to Believe—or Not
Matthew 22:16-22
During our visit to London a couple summers ago, we toured the infamous Tower of London. William the Conqueror began building the tower soon after his conquest of the island in 1066; other kings added to the complex until it became the formidable structure it is today. You probably know the tower was used for centuries as a prison for very special prisoners. It was often the last home those prisoners would know. Eighteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey, a devout Protestant who was queen of England for nine days before the Privy Council changed its mind and made Mary the queen. Jane who had lived in the tower during her short reign was now imprisoned there and eventually beheaded there.
Many of the Tower’s prisoners wrote messages on the walls of their cells. Some simply quoted Scripture, some wrote prayers, some messages of hope. As I thought of the many religious prisoners held there and elsewhere, I had a curious thought. I realized that if many of those who were going to die for their faith should suddenly find the situation reversed, they would imprison those who disagreed with them.
You see, no matter how appealing the idea may seem, when the church and the state are wed the marriage is disastrous.
When Jesus answered the question posed by his opponents, he set down a principle that would eventually play a crucial role in how Christians would come to relate to the political authorities. Unfortunately, the church suffers recurring bouts of amnesia so it often forgot that principle. Today, I want to celebrate that principle and remind you of some of its history and its benefits.
The New Testament writers never say anything that could be taken to endorse the coercion of belief. Preachers might be as persuasive as possible but their final word to any congregation, crowd, or individual was “Choose.” They never imagined or expected that the state might strong-arm people into the church or check “Christian” on the birth certificates of infants born within its borders. Yet, both became a reality.
In time this filled the church with nominal Christians. Oh, there were always sincere, devout believers but their enthusiasm was often seen as a threat to the status quo. In the end, the leaders of the church—even after the Reformation—became content with letting the state be their partner in the task of evangelism.
But the church’s amnesia doesn’t last forever. In time, when things are their messiest, someone will say, “Didn’t Jesus say something about this?”
You might not immediately recognize the name of Thomas Helwys. He was a member of a family that was rising in prominence in late sixteenth-century London. Thomas studied law at Grey’s Inn and lived in London for a short while until he moved back to Lincolnshire and married. It was there that he and his wife became sympathetic to the Puritan cause and eventually become part of John Smyth’s little band of dissenters. (John Robinson, who would eventually lead the Pilgrims to Plymouth, was also part of the group.)
As persecution of dissent increased, Smyth and Helwys led a little group of dissenters to Amsterdam where they would be somewhat safer than they would have been in England. While in Amsterdam, Smyth and Helwys became convinced that their baptism was invalid and that only believers should receive baptism. After careful study and reflection they produced a confession and a new expression of Christian faith. And so, Helwys is remembered, along with John Smyth, as one of the founders of the Baptist denomination.
Eventually, Helwys led some of these English Baptists back to England so they could spread their new faith. For a while, the little group met at Spitalfields in east London. This was the first Baptist church on English soil.
Thomas wrote a little book called A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity. He sent King James I a copy, urging him to take its message to heart. Instead, the king had him arrested. Thomas Helwys, cousin of Sir Gervase Helwys, a lieutenant at the Tower of London, died at Newgate Prison in 1616.
What was so significant about this little book? Though it maintained a respectful tone, it echoed Jesus’ words about things belonging to Caesar and things belonging to God. Consider this quote: "If the Kings people be obedient and true subjects, obeying all humane lawes made by the King, our Lord the King can require no more: for men’s religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the King shall not answer for it, neither may the King be judge between God and man."
Helwys had written what was almost certainly the first call for complete religious freedom. Some earlier writers had argued for freedom for all Protestants but Helwys argued that Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews—everyone, including atheists—should have freedom of conscience. It would be well over a century and a half before any national government embraced such a vision for itself.
Only a few years after Helwys’s death, settlers would begin coming to America. Some of them, like the Puritans and the Pilgrims, would be coming to find freedom to worship as they wished. Of course, these same people had no intention of giving others that same freedom. They would banish, whip, and even hang any who dared to differ too much from their beliefs.
In the 1630s, Roger Williams, at the time a minister in Plymouth, Massachusetts, would begin to call for freedom of religion and separation of church and state. In 1536, the colony’s leaders decided to send him packing back to England. Williams, learning of their intentions, fled, living for a while with the Wampanoags. Eventually he founded a new community in what would become Rhode Island. This new community became a refuge for religious dissenters of all types. Williams became a Baptist for a few months in 1538 but it was long enough to found a church which is usually considered to be the first Baptist church in America.
By the time the new United States was founded, the notion of religious freedom was more acceptable.
· Some, like the Baptists, argued for religious freedom on Biblical grounds.
· Some, like Thomas Jefferson, influenced perhaps by the Enlightenment, embraced the notion on more philosophical grounds.
· Some, pragmatists at heart, realized that religious freedom was the only way the diverse population could be united.
Of course, even after the constitution was ratified, religious life in the United States was not what we know today. It was the 1830s before Massachusetts stopped collecting taxes from its citizens to support the Congregational church.
Still, the United States had set out on “the lively experiment” that placed religious views of every type on a level playing field. At the time, you couldn’t find anything else like it in the world. Needless to say, there is nothing like it in the Muslim world. You can stand on the corner of High and Broad and pass out copies of the Koran, knowing that the police will protect your right. Try to pass out copies of the New Testament on a street corner in Tehran and the police will haul you off to jail. In fact, nothing in the Islamic worldview suggests Muslim nations will ever know the religious freedom we know.
Even in the UK, the monarch remains the head of the Church of England, though that’s largely a symbolic title. The Prime Minister and Parliament actually appoint the bishops. Some believe this hurts the Anglican Church because people see it as a tool of the government, a government they sometimes feel doesn’t care for them.
Here in the US, the churches that survived were churches that tried to meet the real spiritual needs of people.
Here in the US, church membership is a choice. Though the system isn’t perfect, it assures that the percentage of nominal members is less than it would be in a state church.
Here in the US, you are free to support the church-related programs you wish to support. Your taxes don’t go to support a church that doesn’t minister to you, a pastor who is indifferent to or skeptical of doctrines you hold dear, or that blindly endorses all the government says so it won’t risk its privileged status.
Today, the United States has a higher percentage of its population participating in church life than any other Western nation. In America, there are more ordained clergy per capita than in any other nation. (I think the same thing can be said about lawyers so you might take that with more than a little salt.) At the same time, in America you don’t have to be ordained to lead a band of believers; you can meet with them in homes, at coffee houses, anywhere. The last I heard some 13% of believers attended “church” in a non-traditional setting such as a house or apartment and the number was growing. In many nations, if you are a Christian, you may dream of the day when a brave soul will smuggle a Bible to you. In the US, you can buy a Bible at Giant Eagle. (Of course, shrewd marketers have also made it possible for you to buy Bibles geared to almost any group you might name: men’s Bibles, women’s Bibles, recovery Bibles, patriot’s Bibles, and the list goes on.)
Here in the US, your church’s growth isn’t tied to the ups and downs of the birth rate.
In fact, here in the US, your church’s growth is to some degree linked to your commitment to and enthusiasm for your church’s ministry and message. Historically, it has been the “enthusiasts” who have seen their churches grow. Upstart churches like the Methodists, the Christian churches, and the Baptists spread like spilled tea across the frontier, leaving the older churches behind.
In the early nineteenth century, Congregational churches in New York City asked for funds to sent missionaries to the western part of the state where they said there were no churches. In truth, the area was dotted with Baptist and Methodist churches. But the sophisticated Congregational leadership refused to recognize these congregations as real churches. After all, oftentimes their leaders had no formal training. The only thing they had going was converts by the droves.
A century before this, the Methodists hadn’t existed and the Baptists would have faced legal challenges to their efforts.
Religious freedom makes this possible.
I’ve never believed that there is any special reason why God should bless America. I’ve certainly never believed that America is the only nation God has ever blessed. But I do believe that God blessed America by leading a group of visionaries that included Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, a couple Catholics, a couple Methodists, at least one Deist and one Huguenot, but not a Baptist in sight to endorse a Constitution that embraced a revolutionary idea that was born in the hearts of the harried English Baptists.
You and I can choose to believe the gospel or not. We aren’t allowed to choose the consequences of unbelief but nothing allows the church to force us to believe.
You and I who have chosen to believe have been the beneficiaries of a great blessing. We are right to meet for Bible study to talk about it, to gather to sing about it, to bow our heads to thank God for it, and to sit through sermons learning more about it.
But surely that freedom brings responsibilities and opportunities.
We have the responsibility to guard it—not only for ourselves but for others.
Just as important, we have the opportunity to invite others to choose. We must issue that invitation with grace, wisdom, and love. But offer it we should because in so doing we bring honor to the one who is a Liberator in so many ways.
