It happened in Massachusetts. A mob, with the battle cry "we are enemies
of disorder and unrighteousness," attacked a group accused of conspiring in
a "Tory plan, the work of the Devil," and their "ruffian leaders. They acted,
they were in the best interests of the state. The group of subversives who so
rightly received the violent attack, some Baptists. The ruffian leaders,
Baptist preachers attempting to administer the rite of Baptism by total
immersion.
  Mob violence against Baptists was not an isolated incident in
Massachusetts history. It was the logical result of over a hundred years of
religious persecution. In the 1600s the Massachusetts Bay Colony was
dominated by the Puritans. They refused to tolerate dissenting religious
beliefs and persecuted religious minorities. In 1636 they banished Roger
Williams from the colony for his teaching. Anne Hutchinson, who had more
people attending her Thursday afternoon theological discussions than went
to church on Sunday, was excommunicated and banished from the colony in
1638.
  In 1662, Mary Dyer was brought in chains to the gallows to be hanged.
Her crime. She was a quakeress. As she died it was remarked, "she was a
vile quakeress" and "she held pernicious and dangerous doctrines." 
  In November of 1644, the Colony's General Court,  decreed banishment
upon conviction for any colonist either publicly opposing infant baptism or
secretly attempting to dissuade others from using that ordinance.
  In 1651, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall travelled from
Rhode Island to Lynn Massachusetts to administer communion to one of
their church's members, William Witter. Mr. Witter was unable to travel to
church because of blindness and aged. While they were worshipping at the
Witter home, constables entered and disrupted the meeting. The three
visitors were arrested on orders of the Salem magistrate, Robert Bridges.
Clarke, Holmes and Crandall were compelled to attend orthodox puritan
services but they stated in advance they would not take communion. The
constables were furthered angered when the three would not take off their
hats during the service and Clarke read a book throughout the service. After
the Service, Clarke attempted to preach, showing the errors of the Puritan
Church.
  Convicted on unsubstantiated charges, the three were sentenced to either
pay fines or be whipped publicly. Clarke inquired how such a sentence could
be justified when the law only ordered banishment. The colony's Governor
said they deserved death for their teachings.
  Friends paid the fines for Crandall and Clarke even though they
themselves had refused to pay. Holmes managed to keep anyone from
paying his fine. He said he gave thanks that God considered him worthy to
suffer for Jesus Christ. In September, 1651, the authorities of Massachusetts
vigorously lashed Holmes thirty times with a three pronged whip. He told
them, "you have struck me with roses," but he suffered great pain and slept
on his knees and elbows for days.  Holmes, by the way, was an ancestor of
Abraham Lincoln  
Treatment of religious dissent in such a manner caused Baptists to realize
that no church should have the sanction of the state. The Puritans, who had
fled religious persecution, were just as bigoted and used the state to punish
dissent just as the Church of England had done. No religious group,
including the Baptists themselves could be trusted with such power because
the very nature of religious belief would cause it to be misused.
John Clarke was to spend twelve years in England trying to obtain a
charter which would guarantee religious liberty in Rhode Island. Roger
Williams had obtained a charter in 1643 but due to internal struggles in the
colony a new charter was desired. Clarke began working for the charter in
1652 and it would not be obtained until 1663.
Clarke felt that the church and state should be governed by separate
agents because they were distinct realms with different functions. The state
had the duty to establish and maintain peace, liberty and prosperity in the
visible civil order. The church was to be administered by Christ in governing
the invisible mind and spirit of man. He contended that a thousand loyal
souls motivated by love and conviction were far superior to a hundred
million subjects who confessed a religion from fear of wrath or revenge by
the state. Clarke realized that civil enforcement of a particular brand of
Christianity resulted in formalism and hypocrisy. In the 1663 charter the
colony of Rhode Island is described as "a livelier experiment. . . where
subjects could pursue with peaceable and loyal minds the sober intentions of
God by edifying themselves one to another, in the holy Christian faith as
they were persuaded." Clarke believed everyone had the right, given by God,
to freedom of conscience in the exercise of the right to worship. He warned
those who were free to exercise this right that they had better be prepared
to defend themselves against all enemies who would seek to take the right
away from them.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof. these are the first words of the bill of
rights. The first words of the first amendment made to the Constitution. In
offering the Bill of Rights, Congress said, "the conventions of a number of
states having at the time of their adopting of the constitution, expressed a
desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its power, that
further declatory and restrictive clauses should be added." In fact, the
absence of a clause guaranteeing religious freedom almost prevented the
constitution from being accepted. Sic weeks before the Virginia convention
met to consider the new national constitution, the General Committee of
the state's Baptists met and declared that the new constitution did not
"make sufficient provision for the secure enjoyment of religious liberty." The
North Carolina convention insisted that a guarantee of religious freedom be
added to the Constitution. One of the leaders in this move was Henry
Abbot, a Baptist minister.
             What is the proper relation of Church and State?
Consider for a moment the Supreme Court ruling in 1963 which stated
that the "non-sectarian" prayer, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our
dependance upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our
teachers and our country" was unconstitutional as a regular part of the
school program. Do you think that it was wrong to require this prayer in a
public school? Should the court have ruled as they did? Would you respond
differently if the required prayer had been "Guru, in the glory of the
personified transcendental fullness of Brahman, to him, to Shri Guru Dev,
adorned with glory I bow down?" Religious liberty must work for all people
or it works for none. to use the schools to indoctrinate children in one
religion in wrong. We can easily miss this point if the religion happens to be
ours.
James Madison, the author of the first amendment wrote, "it is proper to
take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. . . . Who does not see
that the same authority which can establish Christianity to the exclusion of
all other religions may establish with the same ease any particular sect of
Christians, in exclusions of all other sects?"
In 1855, a group of Baptists in Henderson County, Tennessee submitted a
petition to Congress. They asked, concerning chaplains, "Why clergymen
should be sustained by Government in either house of Congress, at our
military and naval stations, on board our vessels of war, and each regiment
of our army, any more than in each township, parish, district or village
throughout the land?" How would you deal with their question?


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