PATRIOTISM AND THE DECLINE OF A CHRISTIAN NATAION - PART III
But some people might object suggesting Paul had in mind Christian rulers like the Emperor Theodosius I, who came to power some three centuries after Paul. While that would be an inaccurate interpretation of Paul, let us fast forward to some so-called Christian kings.
Consider, for example, the notorious Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. While they commissioned and financed Columbus to "sail the ocean blue in 1492", they also instituted the Inquisition in 1492. They decided the wanted Spain to be 100 per cent Catholic so they began an "ethnic" or "religious cleansing"of their country. Jews and Muslims could either convert, leave or be killed. Thousands left while some thousands of others converted only often later to be vilified.
A little later in Germany, in about 1521, Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, stood before the Diet of Worms (a supposedlyChristian political body) on trial for his life becasue of his supposed heretical views. At great peril to his life he boldly upheld his views contrary to the state and its church saying, "Here I stand. I can do no other."
In the 17th Century French Huguenots (Calvinistic Protestants) were massacred by Church and State. In 17th Century England our Congregational forebears, variously called independents, dissenters and separatists, were persecuted by Christian King and Church. The Separatists believed the Church of England to be corrupt and wanted to separate from it to form a pure church founded on the New Testament.
So in 1620, the Mayflower Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts to establish their "city upon the hill", to be a light to all the nations, and the Puritans later joined them to form the Divine Commonwealth. They believed in religious freedom for themselves, but as it turned out, not so much for Baptists who had to go to Rhode Island or the Quakers who had to go to Pennsylvania.
Back in Geneva, Switzerland, John Calvin advocated freedom from Roman Catholicism. But when Geneva's Servetus advocated Unitarian freedom from Calvinistic Trinitarianism, Calvin consented to Servetus being burned at the stake.
On and on the story goes. Did Paul the apostle mean that every Christian magistrate is ordained of God and brought to office by Divine Will? Did he mean to imply the Divine Right of Kinds? If Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin had believed that, would they have signed our famous and historic Declaration of Independence, in defiance of King George, a Christian king?
The grand words of the Declaration resonate within our souls: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." And they signed the document, putting their lives on the line in resistance to a state church and the divine right of kings. As John Adams said just before signing: "All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it; and leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration."
(to be continued)
