Baptist Bites: Roger Williams' Dangerous Ideas

When we last checked in with Roger Williams, he had left the Plymouth church, in 1633, and was made pastor of the church at Salem, Massachusetts.  But though he found the Plymouth church to be insufficiently “separated” from both the Anglican tradition and all those who remained in fellowship with them, his time in Plymouth had brought him into proximity with the Native American population of the area. Williams believed he had a Gospel responsibility to reach out to them, and so he began a course of learning their language. His work and writings in that area were quite helpful to other colonists; many unnecessary battles were prevented because of Williams’ primer on the language. Understanding what a stranger is actually saying is key to peaceful relations with him.  During his time with the tribespeople, however, Williams’ conscience was affected in the same manner as William Penn. He began to hold the conviction that English colonists could not lay claim to the land just because their King said so. The land belonged to the Native Americans, and if the English colonists wanted to acquire some land, they should be treating with its rightful owners.

For two years, Williams continued as pastor of the Salem church. But its proximity to Boston made him more susceptible to the attention of the ruling civil/religious authorities in the city.  In 1635, he was brought before the court to answer four charges. First was the matter we just discussed: who owned the land. Williams proclaimed that the colonists should repent of the notion that they could take the land from the Native peoples, just because the King said so.  This understandably ruffled feathers and made him some enemies. The second thing that made Williams unpopular was that he had been speaking against taking oaths to the civil authorities. He reasoned that many people in the colony were not true Christians, and that it was blasphemous to ask unbelievers to take oaths in the name of God. He did not believe that civil authorities should be bound by oaths to God in the first place; such vows should only be taken to God in service to His Own Kingdom. The third charge brought him into direct conflict with established church authorities: Williams preached that it was sinful to sit under the teaching of any minister connected with the Church of England. He further taught that true believers should also separate from anyone who would not separate from Anglicans themselves—even if it was a family member! And fourth: that the civil authorities only had sway over the bodies and property of citizens. When they attempted to make laws compelling the consciences and religious affiliations of its citizens, they were treading on ground that belonged only to the Kingdom of God. 

There was really no question as to whether Williams was “guilty” or not: he’d taught these things openly, and he made no attempt to disguise it.  The judgment of the court was that Williams would be exiled from the colony within six weeks; if he behaved himself and refrained from these teachings, they would give him until spring of 1636.  But by now we’ve come to understand how bold Williams was. He continued to meet secretly with his flock and teach them just as before. When authorities found out, they sent officers out to arrest Williams and place him on a ship bound for England. This was January of 1636.  But here is an interesting twist: apparently, Massachusetts Bay Governor Winthrop had some liking for Williams and sent word to warn him.  Williams fled to the wilderness.

For the better part of four months, Roger Williams had to face the brunt of a harsh winter.  He faced hunger and exposure to the elements; as he said, “…not knowing what bread and bed did mean…exposed to a winter’s miseries in a howling wilderness of frost and snow.”*  His choice to honor the Native communities by learning their language and addressing them as sovereign owners of their own lands, however, reaped a reward. It was their kindness that made the difference between life and death. It was a terribly uncomfortable experience, but Williams did survive.  Spring came, and by June of 1636 Williams had arrived at the place we now call Rhode Island. He and some followers from Salem worked to establish the colony of Providence Plantations.  He chose the name to give thanks to God, who had provided for his escape from his Massachusetts Bay persecutors and kept him alive through a terrible winter.  When we return next month, we’ll cover the colony and church he started, and the principles that made it truly unique for the time.  Many of those principles are still part of our DNA as Baptists.

*My sources for this article include The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness by H. Leon McBeth (Broadman Press, 1987) and Roger Williams: New England Firebrand by James E. Ernst (The MacMillan Company, 1932)

Baptist Bites: The Good and the Bad of Roger Williams' Separatism

      We have been surveying the life of Roger Williams, the most prominent founder of the Baptist movement here in North America. We have covered his early life and strong religious zeal. As a law clerk, he saw the unjustly harsh treatment of the nonconformists who questioned the theology and practices of the Church of England. As he pursued his theological education further and took up his first clerical position, his own convictions led him in the Separatist direction. His zealous, outspoken tone no doubt hastened the disfavor he began to experience from the Anglican hierarchy, until in 1630 he booked passage with his wife aboard the ship Lyon to America. It seems that the radar of King Charles I had locked onto him. He would have soon been arrested by the order of Charles’ Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Laud was England’s answer to the young Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who hunted down believers in Jesus and led them, shackled, to their doom.  Laud was very zealous for the high liturgy of the Church of England and demanded strict allegiance to its hierarchy. Those who fell out of line were often publicly whipped, mutilated, experienced facial branding, or exiled.  Williams had no desire for that treatment for himself and his beloved wife. But he left England with some resentment, writing to a friend that “It was bitter as death to me when Bishop Laud pursued me out of this land, and my conscience was persuaded against the national church and ceremonies and bishops.”* That backdrop is important for understanding what formed his mindset as he arrived in America.

 

His reputation for learnedness and zeal preceded him; he was promptly offered a position of teaching pastor at the prominent Boston church. Williams turned them down flat, and not in the most diplomatic tone. He judged the Boston church to be only half-hearted in their separation from the Anglican Church, and he communicated enough of that to them that the church was deeply hurt and resentful about it.  In spring of 1631 he was installed as pastor at the nearby church in Salem, but the civil/church authorities in Boston found out about it. They waged a campaign to discredit Williams and pressure the Salem church to turn him out. Williams then moved to Plymouth, where he took a position as assistant minister. The people in Plymouth gave him a warm welcome, but Williams stayed only two years. Again, he began to conclude that the Plymouth church was not “separated” to the degree he thought appropriate. Though they tried very hard to be supportive, he pushed his Separatist views to the extent that they too became hurt and pushed back. Elder William Brewster wrote that he was concerned that Williams might “run the same course of rigid Separatism and Anabaptistry, which John Smith…” had done. Brewster’s prediction turned out to be right on the money.

 

In 1633 Williams moved back to Salem, where he was appointed minister regardless of objections from his detractors in Boston. He remained there until 1635 as he progressed in his views of Separatism and religious freedom. He grew in his belief that political power should never be used to coerce the spiritual beliefs and practices of the people. When his time at Salem ended, it wasn’t because of church conflict. He had brought the ire of civil authorities. Thus began the series of events that led to his flight from Massachusetts and establishment of a new colony founded on the principle of religious liberty. It was there that Williams founded the first Baptist Church in America, though his Separatist mindset led him to pull away even from his own church. But we will discuss more of that in the future.

 

For this month, I’d like to conclude with a brief evaluation of this ever-separating impulse, held by Williams and others in Baptist history.  Protestants, and especially Baptists, have shown a keen ability for perceiving areas of belief which differ from others. This has led to many church splits and the formation of new denominations. But to what extent is this a healthy impulse? We have to be careful about evaluating historical events through the lens of modern sensibilities; our biases may cause us to dismiss people of the past too easily. We need to remember that there were principles involved in the Protestant Reformation, principles that were viewed as making the difference between eternal life and death. I would say that many reasons for the split from the Catholic Church could be viewed as true “essentials.” But Protestant groups have continued to splinter, and Baptists in particular have done so. At what point have we entered unhealthy territory? Baptists have had legitimate concerns. Believers’ Baptism is clearly attested by Scripture and Church history, and we have good reason to believe that immersion is the mode taught in Scripture. Baptists like Williams have rightly contended that belief must be freely led by independent study of the Bible, that personal conscience cannot be compelled by civil power. Williams was a true champion of this last point, and we owe so much to him and others like him who were willing to suffer persecution for these beliefs. There was much to the “good” side of the ledger for our Baptist founders.

 

But Williams is also an emblem of the factious spirit that plagued both historical and contemporary Baptists. We’ve read about why Separatists concluded there was still too much corruption and compromise in the Church of England. They believed that there could be no continued fellowship with the Anglicans.  However, Williams and other Baptists took this impulse too far. Not only were the Catholics anathema, not only were the Anglicans anathema because they would not separate from the  High-Church trappings of Catholicism – Puritans were anathema because they didn’t cut off all association with Anglicans. Even Separatist churches were the enemy if they weren’t separated enough, or even if they continued to associate with those who didn’t separate enough. Do you see the absurd and unhealthy places this can take us to, this spirit of factionalism run amok? Guilt by association is a diseased way of thinking that wounds Christ’s church. Eventually, Williams separated from the church he founded and he was all by himself. Baptists today need to learn from the unhealthy aspects of our history as well as the healthy ones. We need to learn that there is a difference between essentials and non-essentials. Baptists differ on some points from other denominations, and those differences are valuable enough to uphold. What we must not do is cast judgment upon other Christian denominations who agree with us on the essential points of orthodox belief but differ on some non-essential points.  Let us value and maintain the things that make us Baptists, but let us call biblical Christians in other denominations by their right names: brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

*Note: the direct quotations in this article are from Roger Williams: New England Firebrand by James Ernst (New York: Macmillan Company, 1932)