III. State Churches Constitute “Right-Wing” Group

1. STATE CHURCHES IN THE OLD WORLD

At the time of its separation from Rome, the Church of England was not Protestant; it was simply an “English edition” of Roman Catholicism. Final authority was simply transferred, by the Act of Supremacy, from the pope to the king. But Catholic rites and dogmas were progressively set aside, and the liturgy translated into English. Even the persecution of Mary’s Catholic reign did not kill out Protestant ideas. It resulted, however, in the introduction of Calvinism into England and Scotland, when the exiled clergy returned from Geneva under Elizabeth’s Protestant regime. Calvin’s view of an “absolutely fixed and sacred system of laws and punishments decreed by God and upheld by His ministers,” required a theocracy in which the Calvinist churchmen should dominate civil authority with censorship over private morals. In England the conservative Anglo-Catholic party was supported by the throne against an increasingly aggressive, reforming minority of Calvinistic Puritans in a contest over the vesting of authority in presbyters rather than in bishops. ^{8E. S. Bates, op. cit., pp. 60-74.} But the ethical attitude of Calvinism, under the guise of “Puritanism,” later influenced the Anglican Church, and it became well established in America in Colonial days.PFF4 17.2

Meantime, the “Brownists” developed—the Independents, Separatists, or Congregationalists—who also were to have a profound influence on American religious life. Robert Browne, the founder of Congregationalism, openly supported the Anabaptist position—“that the church should return to the pattern of Primitive Christianity,” with autonomous congregations—and he even countenanced the separation of church and state. The Separatists exercised the most “rigid inquisitorial control” over morals and conduct, for they were Puritans. Persecution drove several groups of them to Holland, and thus furnished the “original nucleus” for the later New England Pilgrims. ^{9Ibid., pp. 74-78.}PFF4 18.1

2. STATE CHURCHES IN COLONIAL AMERICA

America became the melting pot of political, social, and religious ideas and ideals, as well as of nationalities. But religious liberty for all was not brought over to the colonies from Europe. On the contrary, radical and conservative alike-left wing and right wing-had essentially the same concept of establishing God’s kingdom on earth through human, churchly endeavor. ^{10Ibid., pp. 83-86.}PFF4 18.2

Picture 1: THE GOVERNOR BRADFORD HOUSE AT PLYMOUTH
Primitive conditions marked the new
world’s colonial beginnings in the destined land of freedom. Many believed it to be part of the “Wilderness” or “Place” that God had prepared, as a place of refuge from
persecution
Page 19PFF4 19

In Virginia, the first English colony, the Anglican was the established church, and uniformity was enforced to a certain extent. The second colony, Plymouth, was settled by the Separatist Pilgrims, whose ideal was not so much that of separation of church and state as of a community of the faithful, covenanted together in single, local church fellowship for the worship of God-a basic Anabaptist concept.PFF4 19.1

The Massachusetts Bay Colony, established about 1630, was not founded by Separatists, but by members of the Puritan wing of the established church, though they used the Congregational polity for practical purposes. In Massachusetts the ideals of Calvin seemed about to be realized—the divine right of pope and kings replaced by the divine right of the clergy and magistrates. The Pilgrims at Plymouth were somewhat milder, but in Massachusetts Bay the voter must be a church member, and to become such he must be examined and passed upon by the clergy. ^{11Ibid., pp. 94, 95, 104, 105, 120, 124.}PFF4 19.2

But in 1631 the newly arrived Roger Williams—the “profoundest thinker that England gave to American history” struck at the central principle of the Massachusetts Bay oligarchy by demanding the Anabaptist principle of separation of church and state. Forced to flee, he established Rhode Island, the only colony where complete religious freedom was vouch—, safed to all-including Quaker, Jew, and Roman Catholic. ^{12Ibid., pp. 125. 130, 134, 135, 149.}PFF4 19.3

Maryland had beep| the first colony to introduce “toleration” (not complete religious liberty) as a policy. But next to Rhode Island, the Quaker colonies-Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware—were the most liberal. All the proprietary colonies had liberal tendencies because of their mixed population. It was, indeed, this very diversity of religions that made possible the separation of church and state, and gave a distinctive character to American church development. ^{13Ibid., pp. 173, 174; American State Papers and Related Documents on Freedom in religion, pp. 91, 92; W.W. sweet religion in colonial America pp. 322-339.}PFF4 20.1