The Church: Baptist Reaction to the Unholy Alliance of the State Church and the so-called Universal Church Part 6 – by Dan Nelson
Dan Nelson 03/05/2021 by Dan Nelson
The Church: Baptist Reaction to the Unholy Alliance of the State Church and the so-called Universal Church Part 6
Throughout history, Baptists have always resisted a state religion mandated by a civil ruler or co-opted with the Roman or a Protestant church. It has resulted in many grievous errors. At the top of the list is people believing because their rulers decreed a certain religion (Catholic or Protestant), that they were alright with God and salvation because of the misconception they were a “Christian country” and one person’s faith or lack of it covered them as “Christian.” It ignored individual conversion, hid the Bible to only the elite clergy (who didn’t know it that well or perverted it), resulted in a mixture of pagan practices with Christian ones, and gave enforcement power to the state over people’s consciences, determining what religion they would be. The result of state religion was grievous to nations and was a major cause of the Dark Ages.
Constantine began the lie of decreeing everyone Christian by government edict. The Eastern Orthodox group grew as a result of a mandated religious government. Popes controlled rulers demanding they marshal armies for the crusades, and in some cases putting countries under interdiction and. ex-communication in the case of Henry IV in Germany by Pope Gregory VII in 1077.1Popes and Kings Which One Had more power in the Middle Ages: https://www.lhschools.org/Downloads/ Gregory%20vs%20Henry.pdf Biblical ignorance abounded and no one knew the Scripture. Biblical Ignorance is the reason along with hypocrisy for why the civil rulers reacted violently to men who wanted to interpret the Bible and make it widespread such as men like Wycliff, Savonorla, and Tyndale. Luther would have been tried and burned at the stake had it not been for the protection afforded him by Emperor Fredrick. Still, the Council of Trent in 1555 renounced any progress made in the area of biblical understanding, justification by faith, biblical authority, and reinserted dominance by Catholicism through civil governments in religious wars. The attempt to insert Protestantism as the state religion fared no better. Europe suddenly became a battle zone in the 16th and 17th centuries making the King the head of the Church of England with Henry the VIII’s attempt to get a divorce from the Pope failing. Instead of allowing religious freedom, many rulers picked up the mantle of religious oppression resulting in a Civil War in England and even the persecution of dissenters in America for the first two centuries of their existence.
Strong lobbying of the Baptists under the leadership of John Leland got the government out of the state enforcement of religion in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Never let it be forgotten that the Baptists led the way in religious liberty removing state religion from our countries history and in essence establishing the first amendment rights for all Americans. The struggle is still prevalent today and must be opposed such as in the recent “Equality Act” passed by the House and sent to the Senate that would in essence mandate by the government that religious groups hire people regardless of sexual orientation if they apply for a job with them regardless of a churches beliefs on the subject.Baptists have always been on the outside looking in. Persecution and martyrdom from state religion have been their lot when in most cases the hypocrisy of state-run religion has left many in the position of not being in true New Testament churches and allowing their consciences to be dictated to by false religion. Baptists resist a regional or universal church buttressed by a state religion because:-It makes coercion the rule of the day to a state-run religion and leaves no choice. People are not converted by coercion-It makes civil rulers the religious spokesman for a country or colony.
William Estep said “For the Anabaptists, the most damaging element in the fall of the church was its alliance with the state. When church and state came together, the church ceased to be the church. Anabaptists, in their attempt at restitution of the apostolic church, did not deny the right of the state’s existence. They did deny it any jurisdiction in religious affairs.”2 William Estep, The Anabaptist Story: Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 194-It decides for the individual by edicts and decrees what they will adhere to.
Emir Caner said, “The very reason for error’s defense and enforcement was that it was indefensible. No wonder it will take an oppressive state church partnership to uphold doctrines that would otherwise be considered indefensible.”3 (Emir F. Caner, Sufficientia Scripture: Balthasar Hubmaier’s “Greatest Contribution to Believers” The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishing), 103 -It reinforces the false idea of a universal church over an independent and free one, people are part of by conversion instead of adherence to the government.
Frank Littell wrote: “The Anabaptists felt most strongly of all about the union of church and state. It was here that their vision of voluntary religious association conflicted irreducibly with the amalgamation of the worldly an ecclesiastical power dated from the time of Constantine the Great.”4 Franklin H. Littell, The Anabaptist View of the Church. (Boston: Starr King Press, Beacon Hill, 1958), 65.
Baptists must always oppose state religion mandated by a belief in a universal church because it is our history and is Scriptually where we stand.
Recent Comments