Gary K. Waite

As in my previous blog post for ACBAS (April, 2022), I remain deeply concerned about the growing appeal of Christian Nationalism, or perhaps better, Christian Supremacism, in both the U.S. and Canada.[1] Spreading quickly thanks to social media, this ideology seeks to undo the separation of church and state that is an explicit principle of the American Constitution, and an implicit one in Canadian society. Proponents seek to replace secular democracy with government ruled by Christ through his chosen prophets.[2] If history is anything to go by (and when isn’t it?), then we can expect such a government to enforce a single worldview or religious identity on the population. Orwellian thought control becomes necessary to suppress divergence from the authoritarian leader’s message. Freedom of worship, thought, and expression, become necessary casualties.

We have seen this scenario before. It formed the basis for the concept of Christendom, of a united Catholic Christian Europe under the pope and emperor that was Medieval Europe. In the thirteenth century the popes created inquisitorial courts to investigate and eradicate any form of religious dissent or heresy, while in some regions secular courts took the lead in enforcing religious conformity. Why? Virtually everyone believed that religious difference or diversity made God angry, and this explained the various plagues, famines, and other crises afflicting them.[3]

The Protestant Reformation may have ended the concept of a religiously unitary Europe, but very quickly Protestant rulers adopted the same principle for their own territories. For example, if you were a Catholic in a Lutheran region, or a Calvinist in a Catholic one (or sometimes even a Calvinist in a Lutheran one), you could not worship openly, and many people found themselves forced to migrate to other territories if they wished to practice their faith openly.[4] The end result were the horrific wars of religion which decimated most of the German lands until they ended in 1648.

There were, fortunately, voices raised in opposition to these oppressive measures, and exceptions to the enforced conformity rules.[5] But the most important exception was the new Dutch Republic (the United Provinces of the Netherlands) born through opposition to the heresy prosecution of the Spanish Habsburg monarchs. The Dutch regents, in contrast to most other polities, allowed freedom of conscience, although they stopped just short of complete freedom of worship. Instead, they interpreted freedom of conscience to imply freedom of worship when it was conducted behind private walls. Here the heavily persecuted Anabaptists, now known as Mennonites, not only survived, but prospered. Religious persecution ended, and numerous religious dissenter groups found refuge here.[6]

In England, however, compulsion remained the rule, as the monarch was the head of the state church and required all residents to adhere to it. Many Protestants (Puritans), however, opposed the Church of England’s episcopalian structure as too Catholic, and some of them separated from it. Persecution and flight became the rule, and many headed to the Dutch Republic where the magistrates “winked at” religious diversity and in the process learned that God did not seem to get angry about it.

Among these refugees in the early seventeenth century were the first English Baptists, led by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys. Here they published works promoting the separation of church and state and opposing religious compulsion.[7] Historian John Marshall has suggested that these Baptist writings presaged, and likely influenced, the more complex arguments made in the 1680s by leading philosophers like John Locke.^[8] Among these publications was one by an intriguing if lesser known Baptist by the name of Leonard Busher.

Born in Gloucestershire around 1572/73, Busher joined the Grocer’s Company of London. By 1611 he had become an Independent and was forced into exile in the Netherlands. Busher became a leader of an English Baptist group that was distinct from Smyth’s.[9]  Here, the refugees were influenced by Dutch Mennonites, the heirs of the persecuted Anabaptists. One of these, a conservative Mennonite writer named Pieter Jansz Twisck, in 1609 published a treatise praising the religious diversity of the Dutch Republic, entitled Religions Freedom.[10]

And this is where we return to Busher.[11] Because he was an impoverished refugee in Holland, he was financially supported by liberal Mennonites who called themselves Doopsgezinden, which means “baptism-minded folk.” Thanks to their help, in 1614 Busher produced his own work promoting religious toleration and diversity: Religion’s Peace: or a Plea for Liberty of Conscience. In this work he encourages King James I to follow a Dutch-style freedom of conscience for all peaceable Christians, Jews, Turks, and even pagans.^[12] He argues that compulsion in religion leads only to forcing people to “dissemble their religion, as for example “the Jewes in Spaine and Portugale, and the Papists, Reformists, and others in England.”^[13] He concludes that “perseqution for difference in religion is a monstrous and cruel beast, that destroyeth both Prince and people, hindereth the gospell of Christ, and scattereth his Disciples that professe and witnes his name.” In contrast, “permission of conscience in difference of Religion saveth both Prince and people, for it is a meeke and gentle lamb, which not onely furthereth and advanceth the gospel, but also fostereth and cherisheth these that professe it”.^[14]

While Busher borrowed heavily from Twisck’s Religions Freedom, he was more millenarian-inclined than the Mennonite and wanted to extend toleration not just to dissenting Christians, but also Jews, Turks, and even peaceable pagans or nonbelievers, arguing that such mildness was the best route to their ultimate conversion.^[15]

It is noteworthy that in 1646 a London printer produced another edition of this work during the English Civil War. The foreword to this reprint argues that had Busher’s critique of the Anglican state church been heeded by King James I, the Civil War could have been avoided. It also uses Busher’s work to criticize those who oppose complete freedom of religion, including Presbyterians, for peace will come to England only when they “abate much of your misguided eagernesse in prosecuting your conscientious Brethren.”^[16]

English dissenters like Busher and Smyth very quickly came to appreciate the religious diversity of Dutch culture. English Baptists wanted the same, writing compelling treatises on why the English should follow suit. While they may not have convinced King James I, their arguments shaped the policies of Oliver Cromwell’s government which ended persecution of the Protestant dissenters. Compulsion in matters of faith returned, however, with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Yet, thanks to printers who kept the arguments of Busher, Smyth, and their fellows in the public realm, the idea that a state can prosper without interfering in the beliefs and religious practice of its citizens was kept alive, to be taken up by influential philosophers like Locke and eventually adopted in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution which brought Queen Mary and her husband, the Dutch Stadholder William III, to power.

We must not allow the efforts of these courageous early Baptists to be undone by those who are ignorant of this difficult history and who want, for some inexplicable reason, to return us to the days of state interference in matters religious and moral. The writings of Leonard Busher and his coreligionists speak to the current moment in nearly prescient ways.

Gary K. Waite is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Brunswick.

 

 

 

[1] Gary K. Waite, “Hate Literature Then and Now,” April 9, 2022:  https://acadiadiv.ca/acbas/2022/hate-literature-then-and-now/.

[2] See Matthew Taylor, The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That is Threatening Our Democracy (Broadleaf Books, Fall 2024) and his podcast: https://icjs.org/charismatic-revival-fury/. See also Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (New York, 2019).

[3] I have an article on the subject of “Fear and the Radical Reformation” forthcoming in Bruniana & Campanelliana, which shows how powerful a force the “fear of God” was for both persecutors and their victims.

[4] See Nicholas Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge, 2015).

[5] David Luebke, Hometown Religion: Regimes of Coexistence in Early Modern Westphalia (Charlottesville, 2016); and Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 2010).

[6] See Christine Kooi, Reformation in the Low Countries, 1500-1620 (Cambridge, 2022).

[7] Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, ed., Letters on Toleration: Dutch Aid to Persecuted Swiss and Palatine Mennonites, 1615-1699 (Rockport, ME, 2004).

^[8] John Marshall, John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge, 2006), 150.

[9] William H. Brackney, “Leonard Busher,” in Rodolphe Peter, Martin Rothkegel, and William H. Brackney, eds, Clemens Ziegler. Christoph Freisleben, Leonhard Freisleben. Leonard Busher [Bibliotheca Dissidentium 30] (Baden-Baden/Bouxwiller, 2016), 197.

[10] Pieter Jansz Twisck, Religions vryheyt. Een korte Cronijcsche beschryvinghe van de Vryheyt der Religien/ tegen die dwang der Conscientien … (n.p., 1609). See Gary K. Waite, “Pieter Jansz Twisck on David Joris: A Conservative Mennonite and an Unconventional Spiritualist,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 91 (2017), 371-402.

[11] Busher has not received much attention, but see the recent blog: https://eccentricfundamentalist.com/tag/leonard-busher/

[12] Leonard Busher, Religions peace or A reconciliation, between princes & peoples, & nations … (Amsterdam, 1614).

[13] Busher, Religions peace, 8.

[14] Busher, Religions peace, 14.

[15] Busher, Religions peace, 10. On Busher’s eschatological perspective, see Brackney, “Leonard Busher,” 198-99.

[16] Leonard Busher, Religions peace: Or, A plea for liberty of conscience. long since presented to king james, and the high court of parliament then sitting … (London, 1646), A3^v-A4^v.