501(c)3 Religion: Reemergence Of the Divine Right Of
Kings by: Peter
Kershaw
In the book,
Religious Origins of the American Revolution, the author
makes the following observations:
Arnold Toynbee
has written that the American Revolution was made possible by
American Protestantism...
The American
Revolution might thus be said to have started, in a sense, when
Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at
Wittenburg. It received a substantial part of its theological and
philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin's Institutes of
the Christian Religion and much of its social theory from the
Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660, and, perhaps less obviously, from
the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
Put another
way, the American Revolution is inconceivable in the absence of
the context of ideas which have constituted radical Christianity.
The leaders of the Revolution in every colony were imbued with the
precepts of the Reformed faith...
If the
American Revolution is indeed inconceivable without the
imperatives of radical Christianity, what does this fact suggest
about the Church (or churches) today? How is the complacent and
conservative body of Christians to be roused from its
lethargy...?1
Few questions in
our day could be of as much significance as this one, nor is the
author exaggerating, or being mean-spirited, when he describes the
church as complacent and lethargic. If we wish to understand how to
rouse the church from her slumber, it is imperative that we first
begin to comprehend what the church in America once represented, and
how it later devolved into the predicament that it is in
today.
This is what
the Lord says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the
ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you
will find rest for your souls."2
Many millions of
Americans have begun to recognize that we have been diverted far
from the path that the Founding Fathers mapped out for us. It is
presumed that the readership of this periodical are already
well-informed as to the problems we face, both on a national and an
international level. We, therefore, have little need of itemizing
them here.
If we truly seek
to reestablish America as the Founders intended it, we must do as
the prophet Jeremiah admonished. We must "ask for the ancient
paths." This is in stark contrast to William J. Clinton's scheme of
"building a bridge to the 21st century." Clinton's bridge building
is, in reality, a blueprint for annihilation. The solution lies in
rediscovering those truths from the past, from which our forefathers
relied in establishing a free and independent America. Discerning
where "the good way is" is impossible without an understanding of
our heritage.
America's early
settlers came here primarily for the purpose of establishing a
Christian Republic, a place in which they could be free to worship
God "according to the dictates of their conscience." Even many
modern humanist historians readily acknowledge this to be the case.
Nothing else could account for their eagerness to leave the relative
ease and predictability of European comfort, for the hardships and
uncertainties of a hostile and rugged new world. It was the
State-Church which drove many thousands of Europeans, particularly
English and Scottish, to the primitive American Colonies.
The British
crown represented the establishment church system—the Church of
England. Moreover, the king, by royal edict, was "lord sovereign
head" of the Church. Even many years subsequent to the official
separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome,
Anglicanism remained thoroughly steeped in the tyrannical and
despotic traditions of popery. In Rome, the pope was sovereign head
of the Church; but in England, it was the monarchy. The "divine
right of popes" was exchanged for the "divine right of
kings."
All preaching
and publishing was sanctioned by royal license. No religious license
could be obtained without the public proclamation that the king was
"lord sovereign head" of the Church. For those of Romish persuasion,
there was no personal conflict in such an affirmation; but no
Christian of Reformational faith could swear such an oath of assent.
Many thousands of Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist and
Independent ministers were excommunicated, their churches locked,
and they were ordered to preach and publish no more. Most defied the
ban on unlicensed preaching, taking to their horses and preaching
wherever they could find an audience. The era of the circuit-riding
preacher was born!
Anglican Bishops
routinely engaged in a campaign of terror against "Nonconformist"
ministers. The most brutal and barbaric of men often received their
Bishoprics as a direct result of their notorious and gruesome
reputations. Such is the case of Bishop Paterson, inventor of the
thumbscrews.3
Many a bishop
actively engaged in inventing "machines of torture." If excruciating
pain proved unsuccessful in compelling the "Dissenter" to recant of
his "heresy," he would be shackled to a stake and burned alive. Few
bishops showed any mercy, and this became their final, and most
tormenting, of all punishments. Rather than setting light to
combustibles which would engulf the victim in a roaring inferno and
promptly dispatch them, the bishops would quite often select green
wood. Many a bishop delighted in "slow-roasting" their
victims.
It is,
therefore, easy to understand why thousands of Nonconformist
preachers fled to America's shores, and for a time at least, the
Stuart monarchy was glad to be rid of them. Few colonists shared the
religious convictions of the British crown. For the most part, they
were of the "Protesting faith." Many of the emigrant clergy had been
convicted criminals, guilty of "preaching without a license" and
"publishing without a license." Some had been "banished to the
plantations." Others were fugitives of the law, having received
subpoenas to appear before the king's Star Chamber, but fleeing
rather than facing a heretic's trial. Some had even escaped from the
king's prisons.
Felon
preachers were commonplace in early America, among them, William
Penn. In 1668, Penn published a religious tract, entitled The
Sandy Foundation Shaken. It was published without a license, and
Penn was arrested, tried and jailed in the Tower of London. The only
reason Penn received a lenient punishment is because his
father was Admiral of the British Navy. Almost immediately after his
release, Penn was arrested on Grace-Church Street in London, for
preaching without a license. As a direct result of the Rev. Penn's
trial, two of the greatest "charters of liberty" were forever
established—jury nullification and the writ of habeas corpus.4 Penn
later became the founder and first governor of
Pennsylvania.
But the arrival
of thousands of unlicensed preachers in America did not
spontaneously result in freedom of religion. While Protestants
firmly adhered to a policy of the independence of the church from
the State, Anglicans exerted their influence in an attempt to bring
all American churches under the sway of the monarchy, and later,
also under the parliament. In an effort to control religion, the
British crown established hundreds of Anglican churches throughout
the American Colonies. Through imposition of various "religious
acts," the king sought a church monopoly. Unlicensed preaching and
publishing was forbidden, and just as in England, the king declared
himself "sovereign head" of America's churches. To America's
Dissenting clergy, this was nothing short of blasphemy. It was in
the unlicensed pulpits of America's Nonconformist churches that the
phrase was coined, "No king but King Jesus!" It was also there that
such patriotic phrases originated as "Live free or die!"
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