Go to the Land I will Show you

 

Anyone who pays attention to current events will have heard of the new “hate speech” laws that have been enacted in England.  If you are like me then you were probably shocked (and deeply disturbed) to hear that police in the United Kingdom are vigorously scrolling through social media to try to identify individuals that they think have broken these new speech codes.  You were likely just as bothered that they’ve actually begun to arrest some people.  It is the end of freedom when the government says that there are certain things they don’t like and therefore cannot be spoken. 

This form of tyranny, though, is familiar to our friends across the Atlantic.  All throughout English history men and women have found themselves faced up against a government that did not support their deeply held religious convictions and that forced them into a decision.  Would they be faithful to God, or would they conform to that which had been mandated by the throne?

From what I can tell this looks to have started with the Lollards.  A movement inspired by John Wycliffe, who was a kind of Protestant before Martin Luther.  They were called Lollards (Lollard meant to “mumble”) because they were not permitted to openly share their views.  Those that were foolish (or brave) enough to do so were burned at the stake and there are many accounts of such martyrs in England, especially in the years before the Protestant Reformation took root.  Many think that England’s choice to embrace the German Luther’s views was the result of Henry VIII’s frustration at the Catholic Church for not approving his divorce to Catherine of Aragon, and it is of course true that this aspect factored in.  But what is often overlooked is that the German monk’s theology flourished the most in the very places where Lollard activity had been the strongest.  In short, these brave souls who faced the flame for their beliefs became a kind of figurative gasoline that spiritually lit England on fire with a passion to read the Bible in their own language and to live lives that were true to what they saw within it; and not what they were told by a pre-approved priest.

But the English Reformation was only the beginning of the tribulations for genuine Protestants.  As mentioned above it was brought about by two forces: 1) A small grass-roots movement that was willing to die for what they believed and 2) Monarchs who acted out of political expediency.  It wouldn’t have taken a professional prognosticator to predict that these 2 currents would conflict with each other in the years ahead.

Be of Good Comfort Master Ridley

But at times they were friends.  After Henry VIII came the reign of Edward the sixth. Edward was just a boy when he ascended to the throne and at age 9 was too young to run the country.  He was raised by Protestant tutors and was sincerely devoted to the faith but would tragically die of tuberculosis in his early teens, having never personally been at the helm of the nation. Two Protestant regents were elevated to lead on his behalf.  These noblemen did much to establish the ideals of the Reformation in England in this short time bringing about many changes in the church, not the least of which involved allowing clergymen to marry.

Edward’s sudden departure, shocking as it was, proved to be a harrowing harbinger of what was to come upon the nation. For he was to be succeeded by Mary Tudor, a zealous Roman Catholic.  Two years into her rule she began to vigorously persecute Protestants.  Bloody Mary, as she came to be known, was responsible for imprisoning many who were guilty of evangelical beliefs and for burning some 300 at the stake.  These were incredibly dark days for those faithful to Scripture in England, but they were also days of great bravery and eternal reward, for “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones” (Psalm 116:15). On one occasion, when two leaders of the Church were being burned at the stake, one turned to the other and said, “Be of good comfort master Ridley, and play the man; for we shall this day light a candle, by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Mary, like Edward, was also to die suddenly, and in her case after having only been Queen for 5 years.  She was followed by Elizabeth I, a Protestant, whose entry into London was like the golden sun rising after the blackest of nights.  A year into her rule she made the Anglican Church Protestant again with a settlement that caused great rejoicing amongst the people and brought many of the exiled Church leaders back to England.  But the Elizabethan Settlement was based on a compromise of sorts with the older, more Catholic, expression of worship that left many of the Church’s leader’s worried that lay congregants might get the sense that this newer, Protestant, church wasn’t all that different from the way things were before.  Theologically, to be sure, England was aligned with the beliefs of Luther and Calvin, but the services themselves had the feel of a Roman Mass; and that concerned a lot of people.

Puritans and Separatists

Individuals that possessed these scruples were known as Puritans and they ignited a culture war within England to bring further changes – which they considered to be the final and necessary aspects of the Reformation – into the Church.  Elizabeth was mostly tolerant of Puritans provided they still – in spite of all their fussiness – conformed to the form of worship that the throne had dictated.  In her mind people were free to believe what they wanted, provided they did this little thing of adhering to the compromise that she (along with Parliamentary and Ecclesiastical authorities) had made with the past.

But there were some who could not go along with it.  These men became known as Separatists because they felt it necessary to separate from the English Church and hold their own services outside of the watchful eyes of Queen and Bishop.  To do this, though, was dangerous.  In those days, over 400 years ago, people believed that religion was the glue that held society together.  Elizabeth was no different in this regard and she viewed her compromise as a kind of universal olive branch, meant to create a tent big enough for all those in England.  Inside the tent was safety, but to be on the outside – to separate from the established fold – was to be an enemy of the throne.

At first Separatists were imprisoned.  The first traces of these rebels were discovered in the late 1560s and early 1570s, where, upon the unearthing of their crimes, they were promptly thrown in jail.  The leader of these early dissidents, Richard Fitz, was to die in prison.  But when another crop of these religious anarchists was found, the penalties became more severe.  2 were hanged in 1583 for “distributing forbidden literature” and another 3 were killed in 1593 for “publishing material with malicious intent”.  These executions were followed by legislation called the “Conventical Act” that decreed “banishment as the first penalty” for Separatism and “death, should the banished person dare return”.

Separatism has a unique place in American history for it was Separatists who, from a desire to find a place where they would be free to practice their faith without harassment and raise their children in the way they thought best, boarded the Mayflower in hopes that the new world would be more welcoming than the old.

One cannot help but imagine how this rag-tag crew of 28 adults and their children must have felt on their journey when, by chance, they opened their Bibles to Genesis 12:1-3, which reads:

“Go from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
² And I will make you into a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing;
³ And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who ^[a]curses you I will ^[b]curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

They had been exiled from England and were strangers in the Dutch Republic, but here they were on this boat, looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.  

Thus, they were off – sailing across the ocean to a land that they knew nothing about, because they knew they could not stay where they had been.  And so, one wonders, if during a moment of reprieve, maybe as an amber sunset was pasteling the evening sky, these families sat together reading about the Promises of God and musing about what the future might hold.

~ 🌅 ~

But just because some had ventured across the Atlantic and started over doesn’t mean that the temperature had cooled in Britain.  There still were wars to be fought and revolutions to be had.  Kings would be beheaded, and preachers jailed.  Many a trouble still lay ahead.  But for now, we can pause with this thought.  That America, and all the good that she has done in the world, was started by people who were fed up with having things pushed on them by the government and decided to risk it all for the chance to live free.  This alone is a powerful testament to us in our day, that despite how dark things may seem to be getting, that God has a plan and that He will always find people who are willing to take Him up on what He is about to do. 

May that we be those people, Lord.  

Amen.