Reflections on Christianity and Freedom
By: William Inboden
December 17, 2012
Yet as a theological principle, Christianity’s emphasis on the interior and eternal dimensions of freedom establishes a foundation for some of the exterior and temporal dimensions of freedom, including freedom of conscience and freedom from religious coercion. Thus Christ’s famous command to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17) was not just a directive that his followers obey the civic authorities, but also a declaration distinguishing between the areas of life that Caesar was competent to rule in, and those he was not. The interior freedom promised by Christianity had at least an exterior implication.
Any inquiry into the relationship between Christianity and religious freedom soon encounters a paradox of history. Christianity has been associated with some of the most notorious episodes of religious intolerance in history, yet Christianity is also associated with some of the greatest advances of religious freedom in history. Indeed, it is these former instances that are often cited as examples of the alleged hypocrisy of Christianity: the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of Servetus in Geneva, the social constraints of Puritanism, and so on. But the accompanying historical record of the Christian tradition’s role in the realization and advance of religious liberty bears another witness. Indeed, perhaps it is this implicit (and sometimes explicit) expectation that the Christian faith support religious freedom that accounts for the severe judgments incurred when it has not. One way to view the unfolding of church history is as an ongoing interaction between the biblical principles described at the outset and the human experience. This historical drama in turn has produced some consequential figures who, in drawing on the theological resources of the Christian tradition during times of great tumult, laid key foundation stones in the development of religious liberty as a political right. Three of them, discussed below, are Martin Luther, Roger Williams, and Charles Malik.
Luther’s appearance in 1521 before the Diet of Worms is regarded by Protestants as a landmark theological moment, but it was also a landmark moment for religious liberty as well. The words of his famous refusal to recant his teachings and writings are instructive: “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason…my conscience is captive to the Word of God, I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.” While Luther’s primary concern was defending his theological convictions about salvation and ecclesial authority, the basis of his appeal was liberty of conscience – a precedent that countless other religious dissenters who followed would take as their lodestar. Luther soon applied this insight to his understanding of the very nature of religious faith. “Faith is a free work to which no one can be forced. It is a divine work in the spirit. Let alone then that outward force should compel or create it.” For Luther, his belief that Christian salvation began as a sovereign act of God led naturally to the conclusion that the State had no competence to interfere. To be sure, in practice Luther did not always honor the spirit or letter of these insights, but more important is the precedent he set for those who later did. Historian Roland Bainton has described religious liberty as one of the signature legacies of the Protestant Reformation. “The age of the Reformation prepared the way [for religious liberty] in the realm of fact by breaking the monopoly of a single confession, and in the realm of idea elaborated all of the salient concepts which in the West came into their own through the Enlightenment.”
One hundred years after Luther, a Cambridge graduate ordained as an Anglican minister named Roger Williams became disillusioned with what he believed to be the errors of Anglicanism and sought refuge in New England. Arriving in Boston in 1631, he soon began attracting many followers – and attracting the displeasure of the Puritan authorities – with his then-unusual views. He held that civil authorities had no authority in religious matters, and so could not require church attendance on the Sabbath or punish citizens for violating any of the first four commandments. For a Puritan society founded on the conviction that they had a national covenant with God, and that He would bless and provide for them only so long as the society stayed united and pure, such views were not only unsettling – they were seditious. After being rebuked by the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities, Williams just became more radical. He soon began teaching that the King of England had no authority to grant the colony its charter in the first place, and charged the King with blasphemy for usurping the prerogatives of God. Not surprisingly, this upset the Puritan leaders even more; when they denounced Williams again, he responded by declaring all of their churches apostate. At their wits end, the Puritan authorities banished Williams from the province. He headed south in the dead of winter, depending on the care of Indians whom he had befriended previously, until he arrived in present-day Rhode Island and founded Providence. Williams by this time had come to embrace believer’s baptism, and in March of 1639, a man named Ezekiel Hollyman baptized Williams, who in turn baptized Hollyman and ten others to form the first Baptist church in America. From that point to his death, Williams was not a member of any particular church. As the eminent Puritan historian Edmund Morgan has described him, Williams was “a charming, sweet-tempered, winning man, courageous, selfless, God-intoxicated – and stubborn – the very soul of separation…[he] would separate not only from erroneous churches but also from everyone who would not denounce erroneous churches as confidently as he did…he could follow a belief to its conclusion with a passionate literalness that bordered on the ridiculous.” Eccentric and hyper-schismatic though he was, Williams’ distinction between civil and religious authority, his progressive relations with the Native Americans, and his resolute commitment to freedom of conscience all stand as admirable legacies.
If Roger Williams laid the groundwork for religious liberty to be realized in the eventual founding of the United States, three centuries later Charles Malik helped codify it as a right for the rest of the world. A Harvard philosophy professor, distinguished diplomat, and one of the main architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Malik made a particular priority of ensuring that the UDHR include a protection of religious freedom. Malik’s own background as a Lebanese Christian who grew up amidst the multiple faiths of his homeland, including Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Druze, and Christians, gave him a particularly acute firsthand appreciation for the importance of religious toleration. Indispensable to this, Malik believed, was the right not only to believe and practice one’s faith, but also to change it. Any restrictions on the right to leave one’s religion and adopt another (or none at all for that matter) amounted to an unconscionable interposition of the State between the human person and the transcendent. Accordingly the final wording of Article 18 of the UDHR bears Malik’s distinct imprint: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this 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.” As significant as the principle of religious liberty that Malik articulated was the foundation that he asserted. Human rights in general, and religious liberty in particular, he believed, were endowed in all human beings not by an abstract deity but by the “Lord of History” by which Malik meant the biblical God. He was clear that belief in this deity was not a prerequisite for having the right to religious liberty – thus his advocacy for the rights of all people – but in his mind this right had a transcendent grounding derived from the Christian faith.
Considered from the vantage point of history, the relationship between Christianity and religious freedom is not a mere set of abstraction ideational influences, but a demonstration of the role of individual Christians, attempting to be faithful to the implications of their faith in their own lives, yet with great consequence for the lives of others and for generations to come.
