I mentioned here the latest book my wife and I are reading together in our longer jaunts: Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick.
In that earlier post, I cited Philbrick's discussion of how the Pilgrims' pastor, John Robinson, who remained in Europe when one-third of his flock sailed to North America aboard the Mayflower, had envisioned a secular government in the New World, one that, in its way, anticipated our contemporary vision for pluralistic democracy.
I also mentioned that, early in his book, Philbrick makes clear his intention of portraying the relationships of the English settlers and Native Americans in all its complexity. Mayflower is no simplistic white hat v. black hat telling of the Pilgrims' story.
We saw the complexity to which Philbrick referred in a part of the narrative we read today, on our way to the gym to work out.
Several years after their arrival in the New World, the Pilgrims (and the "Strangers," non-Separatists, who were part of their settlement) had formed something of an alliance with the Pokanoket tribe and their sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit got wind of a conspiracy involving other tribes. They intended to attack and eliminate the Pilgrims at Plymouth, as well as another settlement of English at Wessagussett. The Pokanoket weren't disinterested in the conspiracy because it was aimed at them as much as at the English.
According to Philbrick, Massasoit demanded that the English engage in a preemptive strike against the conspirators. Partly for fear of offending the Pokanoket, the Pilgrims felt compelled to undertake a wanton slaughter.
But avoiding offense was only one part of their motivation. So was the desire to show the Native American conspirators who was boss. Governor William Bradford bragged about the killings at Wessagussett in a tract published in England, Good News from New England. And, Plymouth's military leader, Miles Standish, had a particular desire to kill one of the Native American leaders, having earlier been offended by the latter's supposed arrogance toward him.
When Pastor John Robinson, still back in the Old World, received word of what the Pilgrims had done in New England, he was not pleased:
[Robinson] refused to forgive the Pilgrims for "the killing of those poor Indians." When he heard about the incident back in Leiden [in the Netherlands], Pastor John Robinson sent Governor Bradford a letter. "Oh, how happy a thing had it been," he wrote, "if you had converted some before you killed any! Besides, where blood is once begun to be shed, it is seldom staunched of a long time after. You say they deserved it. I grant it; but upon what provocations and invitements by those heathenish Christians [Englishmen at Wessagussett]?"
The real problem, as far as Robinson saw it, was Bradford's willingness to trust Standish, a man the minister had come to know when he was in Leiden. The captain lacked "the tenderness of the life of man (made after God's image) which is meet," Robinson wrote, and the orgiastic violence of the assault was contrary to "the approved rule, The punishment to a few, and the fear to many."
Robinson concluded his letter to Bradford with words that proved ominously prophetic given the ultimate course of New England's history: "It is...a thing more glorious in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor barbarous people. And indeed I am afraid, lest by these occasions, others should be drawn to affect a kind of ruffling course in the world."
Robinson's characterization of the Native Americans hardly passes muster today, of course, and rightly so. But he clearly saw the tragic stupidity of unprovoked attacks by people who professed to be Christians, members of his own flock.
In that sense, John Robinson might be seen as having been, once more, ahead of his time.
But, in another sense, the values he espoused in the wake of the massacre are timeless. God's laws of right and wrong have always been written on our hearts. Most of the human race, most of the time though, in big ways and small, prefers to suppress that truth, following the road of perceived self-interest or convenient acquiescence to the prevailing winds of opinion. John Robinson, at least in this instance, didn't fall into that trap.
Every human effort to do the right thing is simply an example of our trying to catch up with God. The truth of what's right and wrong is know to all of us. But when you want to be your own god--the common human hang-up, displayed in many different guises--you don't want to know about God or God's will. That's why Pilgrims, who claimed to be pious Christians, killed Native Americans and it's why so many people today claim that truth is a relative term. God's will can be so inconvenient.
Whenever we drive out of town, my wife, Ann, and I have the same routine: She drives and I read to her. The custom began when we realized early in our relationship that she liked driving long distances more than I do and that, unlike her, I can read in the car without getting sick.
Some might call it kismet. I just call it a good deal. Ann and I both get to do what we enjoy doing while driving and, together, we "read" a bonus book beyond whatever we may individually be reading at the time.
We started out reading magazine and newspaper articles. But in recent years, we've switched to reading books. With frequent visits to see our family members, who are an hour's drive from where we live these days, we've been able to work our ways more quickly through some great books. We just finished T.J. Stiles' biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, The First Tycoon, and have just moved onto Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War.
Philbrick attempts to revise the revisionists' take on the Pilgrim settlers of Massachusetts. He tries to move beyond the simplistic interpretations that have prevailed in the past: first, the virtuous and religious Pilgrims who got along well with the Native Americans they encountered and with whom they celebrated the first Thanksgiving; then, the rapacious, bloodthirsty Europeans who viewed the Native Americans as subhuman obstacles. Neither version of events fits with the facts, Philbrick says, though each contains elements of the more complicated truth.
I may write in more detail about the book later. But for now, I'd like to share a few lines that really caught my attention as we read Mayflower on the way back from a workout and grocery shopping foray this evening. Philbrick is discussing the Mayflower Compact, the famed document about which every elementary school student learns--or at least, learned for years and should still be learning today, if we intend to turn out citizens actually capable of making sound decisions when they vote or watch the television news. The Compact was the first governing document produced by European settlers in the Americas. Along with the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, it is among the most important political document produced here.
Just over half the Mayflower settlers were Pilgrims, meaning that in a vote by males (the only ones who got a vote in this seventeenth century outpost), they could get their way. But their pastor, who remained in Holland as a large portion of his flock headed for the New World, had emphasized the importance of working together with those who didn't share the Pilgrims' faith. Pastor John Robinson's advice, codified in the Compact signed by forty-one male colonists (nine did not sign, many probably owing to illness), acted, in a way, as a model for subsequent developments. Robinson, in a farewell letter written to the Pilgrims from their exile home in Leiden, Holland, where they had lived for some years following emigration from England, did not envisage a theocracy, but a civil government, separated from the Church.
But, take a look at Philbrick's interesting account and reflections:
Before they landed, it was essential that they all sign a formal and binding agreement of some sort. Over the course of the next day, they hammered out what has come to be known as the Mayflower Compact.
It is deeply ironic that the document many consider to mark the beginning of what would one day become the United States came from a people who had more in common with a cult than a democratic society. It was true that Pastor Robinson had been elected by the congregation. But once he'd been chosen, Robinson's power and position had never been in doubt. More a benevolent dictator than a democratically elected official, Robinson had shrewdly and compassionately nurtured the spiritual well-being of his congregation. And yet, even though they had existed in a theocratic bubble of their own devising, the Pilgrims recognized the dangers of mixing temporal and spiritual authority. One of the reasons they had been forced to leave England was that King James had used the ecclesiastical courts to impose his own religious beliefs. In Holland, they had enjoyed the benefits of a society in which the division between church and state had been, for the most part, rigorously maintained. They could not help but absorb some decidedly Dutch ways of looking at the world...
...it was John Robinson who pointed [the Pilgrims in Massachusetts] in the direction they ultimately followed. In his farewell letter, Robinson had anticipated the need to create a government based on civil consent rather than divine decree. With so many Strangers [the term the Separatists like the Pilgrims used for those who didn't share their beliefs] in their midst, there was no other way. They must "become a body politic, using amongst yourselves civil government," i.e., they must all agree to submit to the laws drawn up by their duly elected officials. Just as a spiritual covenant had marked the beginning of their congregation in Leiden, a civil covenant would provide the basis for a secular government in America...
What Robinson foresaw as he said goodbye to his congregants is that while his flock might well remain separated from others in belief, societies in which not all share those beliefs must find ways to function together in a civil society.
Many Christians in American today call for the revival of the United States as a "Christian nation." But even a look at this small slice of US history demonstrates that the Pilgrims' idea of what constituted a Christian community or society differs from what many in the modern US would identify as "Christian." In other words, when you go back to American beginnings, you find that the Pilgrims, among the first European Christians to settle here, didn't want to force their faith down others' throats. The Pilgrims were Biblically pious and utterly intent on following God as they saw fit. And yet, contrary to the laws that prevailed in England, they decided to establish a secular government in which all (at least all white males at that time) could be involved. Like the Dutch among whom they had lived before coming to America, they even made marriage a civil, rather than a religious, ceremony.
I want to share my faith in Jesus through words and actions. I want to care for my neighbor, pray for my neighbor, and, when the times present themselves, ask my neighbor to join me in following Jesus. But like Jesus, I have no desire to impose the Christian good news or my faith in Jesus on others. Like Jesus, I want to persuade others of Jesus' Lordship, doing so, as a Christian, in the confidence that my meager efforts will only bear fruit if God the Holy Spirit is involved. True faith comes not through civil coercion (which is why state churches, such as those that exist in Europe, are disastrous for the witness and ministries of the Church), but through Spirit-powered persuasion.
Like the Pilgrims, I want to work and live together in communities and in a country where there are people who disagree with me. And like the Pilgrims, I have no desire to impose the beliefs that flow from my faith onto the laws of our country. My faith will inevitably inform my internal deliberations over public issues, but I want to live in a civil society. The separation of Church and State has largely served the inhabitants of this continent well for centuries now. It has also given evangelical Christians like me the freedom to share the Christian faith and so to see millions persuaded by reason, compassion, and prayer to follow Christ.
Pastor Robinson's advice may have been rooted in pure pragmatism. But, it turns out that the separation of Church and State is a win for both Church and State.
