License to Preach

 

I think this suggestion by Scott Morrison is interesting. Why?

Because just a few days ago I was thinking about the new hate speech laws, and how they are very old school English. What I mean, is that they reminded me of what the laws of speech were like prior to about 1689 (though general free speech was not really enshrined fully and protected till a bit later).

1688 was when William of Orange took control of the English throne, and in 1689 he made the proclamation of tolerance, stopping persecution of most English protestants. This put an end to Catholic control in England, and the throne remained a guardian of both Protestant religion, and toleration of Christian differences, to varying degrees from that point on.

Prior to that licences for preaching were common. John Bunyan, the famous Baptist author of Pilgrim's Progress, was jailed for preaching without a licence. Many preachers, preacher's wives, and Christians were persecuted for seeking to gather outside of licenced churches, under unlicensed ministries. Baptists, Congregationalists, Shakers, Presbyterians and more were all targeted under these laws.

The kind of churches we take for granted today, where people meet freely of their own choice and discernment, were far harder to run, and often persecuted before 1689.

Tim Grant and myself several years ago wrote about how this changed, and how the BAPTIST theology of liberty of conscience was utterly necessary to making this change. This was a doctrine which existed among the early Church and Church fathers, but passed into obscurity under the state churches of Christendom.

Prior to the revival of this doctrine, Anglicans and high church theologians of most types were decidedly anti-liberty of conscience. Part of what changed this was the Baptist commitment to refuse to bow to state sanctioned rules about who could preach and what could be preached. Another core part of the success of this doctrine was that powerful Anglicans became convinced of the doctrine of liberty of conscience by engagement with Baptists, and they had the power to make it legally protected. John Locke and the Earl of Shaftesbury were two notable examples.

Most of the Church has forgotten how we got to where we are. What is worse is that even the Baptist Churches have forgotten their legacy and are increasingly moving in a direction that is anti-Baptist.

The book Tim and I wrote a book covering this was called Defending Conscience. Because of the context in which we wrote Defending Conscience many people might think this is just a book about the Covid days and the crisis around that. It is not, what Tim and I both saw was the trajectory of our society and the heavy handed and authoritarian response to Covid was merely a symptom of that. Many other Christians saw the same thing. It is frankly disturbing how many did not see this.

I'm not even a little surprised at Morrison's authoritarian suggestion. That man did more to undermine liberty in this nation than any PM before him.

I don't think most Baptist churches can reclaim their legacy of liberty of conscience, and by that I mean their dogged advocacy for it in society. Why? Well, you know what they say about old wine skins, don’t your. But I believe Christians of all types who have appreciated that legacy and want to reclaim it, could learn a lot from that book about how to do so.

I suspect that it will be Christians of varied denominations, maybe even some not denominated yet, that take up that cause successfully. History shows this is usually the case.

Note, for interest sake John Locke predicted that liberty of conscience or wise toleration could not survive in a multicultural society. This was one of his core arguments in his Letter Concerning Toleration. How did he know this? Because all things, including nations, work according to certain principles or laws of determination. You can't have it all, as they say.