Wednesday Read: August 5 - When Religious People Imprison Religious People
On this date in 1656, eight Quakers from England arrived in Boston harbor. The Puritan authorities of Massachusetts Bay Colony immediately imprisoned them without trial, holding them until their ships were ready to return them to England. Their crime? Being Quakers. The Puritans - themselves religious refugees who fled England to escape persecution - were now persecuting other Christians whose beliefs differed from theirs. The oppressed became oppressors within a generation.
This wasn't theological debate or doctrinal disagreement handled through argument. This was use of state power to suppress religious expression. The Puritans controlled Massachusetts government and used that control to enforce their particular vision of Christianity. Quakers rejected formal clergy, liturgical worship, and hierarchical church structure - positions the Puritans considered dangerous to social order. So the Puritans criminalized Quaker presence in their colony.
Over the next few years, Massachusetts executed four Quakers for repeatedly returning after banishment. These weren't violent revolutionaries or criminal threats - they were Christians who believed they were called to share their faith in Massachusetts despite legal prohibition. The Puritans hanged them on Boston Common, convinced they were protecting true Christianity from heretical contamination.
The irony is devastating. The Puritans left England because they believed the Church of England was theologically corrupt and used state power to enforce conformity. They sailed to America seeking religious freedom to practice Christianity according to conscience rather than government decree. Then they established exactly the same system they fled - using state power to enforce their theological positions, criminalizing dissent, and ultimately killing those who refused to conform.
This pattern repeats throughout church history. Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD after centuries of persecution. Within decades, Christians were using imperial power to persecute pagans, destroy temples, and force conversions. The persecuted became persecutors as soon as they gained power. The Reformation brought religious freedom for Protestants from Catholic authority, then Protestants immediately began persecuting each other over doctrinal differences. Every group that fought for freedom to worship according to conscience denied that same freedom to others once they held power.
Jesus warned about this tendency. He told religious leaders: "Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them... So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started" (Luke 11:47-48; Matthew 23:31-32). They honored dead prophets while persecuting living ones. They condemned their ancestors' violence while preparing to crucify God's Son. Religious people excel at honoring oppression from the past while practicing it in the present.
The problem isn't that Puritans or Catholics or Protestants were uniquely evil. The problem is that power corrupts religious people as thoroughly as it corrupts anyone else. When you're convinced your theological position is absolutely right, using power to suppress "dangerous error" feels like protecting truth rather than oppressing people. When you're certain you're defending God's honor, imprisoning or executing heretics seems righteous rather than criminal. Religious certainty combined with political power produces persecution with divine justification.
Jesus established a radically different approach. When Samaritans rejected him, his disciples asked: "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" Jesus rebuked them (Luke 9:54-55). When Peter tried defending Jesus with a sword, Jesus commanded: "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:52). When Pilate asked if he was a king, Jesus replied: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight" (John 18:36). Jesus explicitly rejected using coercive power to advance God's kingdom.
The early church understood this. They spread through persuasion, not compulsion. They won converts through love, not force. They suffered persecution without retaliating. As Tertullian wrote around 200 AD: "It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions." When Christians gained power under Constantine, they quickly abandoned this conviction, using state authority to enforce orthodoxy.
On this August day in 1656, eight people sat in a Boston prison cell for believing differently than those in power. The Puritans who imprisoned them saw themselves as defenders of truth. The Quakers saw themselves as faithful to God despite opposition. Both groups were certain they were right. Only one group used force to impose their certainty on others.
This matters today because religious people still face temptation to use power coercively when it's available. Maybe not imprisoning dissenters, but marginalizing those who disagree, using institutional authority to suppress different perspectives, treating theological certainty as justification for excluding or punishing others. Whenever you're certain you're right and possess power to enforce that certainty, you face the same temptation the Puritans faced: confusing your conviction with God's will and your power with God's authority.
Jesus calls you to persuade, not compel. To love enemies, not eliminate them. To win hearts through service, not control behavior through force. The kingdom of God advances through sacrificial love, not coercive power. Whenever Christians gain political authority and use it to enforce religious conformity, they've forgotten whose kingdom they serve. Your kingdom isn't of this world. If it were, your servants would fight. But it's not. So you don't.
