Tuesday, January 16, 2024

It is the 16th of January 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The history of the Christian church in the West has forever been a story about its relationship to the state. At first, it was a despised and illegal religion; it was the age of martyrs that helped the church to grow. And then, with the coming of Emperor Constantine in the 300s the church gained legal and then favored religion status. With the pope crowning Charlemagne in 800, the state and church were linked as the two primary governing heads of Europe.

While the Reformation brought about questions of religious freedom, at least amongst Christians, most on all sides of the Reformation debate believed that the state and particular confession needed to be aligned. With regards to religious freedom the churches of the Reformation were closer to the Medieval mindset than the modern.

The American colonies made some inroads into religious freedom, although it was only William Penn’s experiment in the woods east of New York that attempted to take a neutral stance on religious confession (with a shout-out to New Amsterdam, which attempted something similar until the Brits took over).

With the ramp-up to the Revolutionary War, new questions arose over the place of the Anglican Church and the Colonies: how could the Church of England- whose head was the King- have jurisdiction in a country claiming independence? And needing support from colonial dissenters, the Anglican Church in America (soon to be rebranded “Episcopal” suggested lessening its grip by repealing some religious taxes.

After the war, calls to establish Christianity- albeit more broadly, allowing for some dissenters- were being called for again. Patrick Henry championed such a bill in Virginia, but the response against it was swift. Baptists and Presbyterians opposed any establishment, and James Madison published his famous Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, circulated and crushed Henry’s bill. This led to a momentous occasion in American religious history when on this, the 16th of January in 1786, Madison shepherded through the Virginia Legislature Thomas Jefferson’s Statue For Establishing Religious Freedom.

Jefferson wrote that withholding civil rights from anyone on account of their religious belief "tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage,” and that “that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”  

There was an attempt to amend Jefferson’s statute by only allowing dissent within the Christian faith, but Jefferson’s assertion that this bill had to be for “Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination” won the day. When the Bill of Rights was being authored, the First Amendment borrowed the language of Jefferson’s statute in its famous declaration that “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.”

Jefferson believed that his three greatest achievements, and what he would have wanted on his epitaph, were recognition of the Declaration of Independence, the founding of the University of Virginia, and his Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom.

The story of Religious Freedom in America has been contested. Supreme Court cases abound regarding everything from polygamy, the place of prayer in public schools, and illicit drug use as part of religious ceremonies. Historically, the court has recognized the distinction between belief vs. action (the state can regulate actions that are generally detrimental that stem from belief).  

Since 1993, in recognition of Virginia and Jefferson’s statute, today has been celebrated officially in America as “National Religious Freedom Day”. The American experiment has been criticized and reinterpreted, but it should be seen as an opportunity to show that the Christian gospel does not rely on the sword or the pen of legislation. Unlike the Constantinian deal that shaped the church for millennia, the American experiment does not give the church favored status but Christianity, following its head, who “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped… rather he humbled himself….” Is content to preach the Gospel, serve the needy and display the beauty if the faith without fear of retribution. It seems paradoxical, losing power to gain it, but such is the way of the Christian faith. A happy “National Religious Freedom Day” in honor of Jefferson’s Statue For Establishing Religious Freedom passed on this day in 1786.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary- still in Psalm 86:

Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;
    no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made

    will come and worship before you, Lord;

    they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;

    you alone are God.

Teach me your way, Lord,

    that I may rely on your faithfulness;


give me an undivided heart,

    that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;

    I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;

    you have delivered me from the depths,

    from the realm of the dead.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 16th of January 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows that First Amendment jurisprudence includes a lemon test and a Sherbert case and sounds delicious. He is  Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man tipping his cap to the Detroit fans- we couldn’t score in the red zone, and y’all deserve it- I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.