And while the Assembly will focus on issues of current and future importance to the church, delegates will have opportunities to remember and celebrate the fact that it was in Richmond 218 years ago that Presbyterians and their Christian allies finally succeeded in casting off the shackles of state control. That’s right. In Richmond.
Contrary to what many people might think, true freedom to worship did not arise in America from the tolerance of early colonists who had fled Europe to escape religious persecution. Once here, many of those settlers proved to be as intolerant of religious dissent as their persecutors had been in the old countries. True freedom of religion was not a product of the Declaration of Independence, nor was it a fruit of the American Revolution that sprang, ripe and nourishing, from the colonies’ final victory at Yorktown.
No, credit for the establishment of the principle of religious freedom for Americans should go to certain of Virginia’s Christian denominations — especially the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists — and their political allies who fought persistently and courageously two centuries ago against the policy of established religion that prevailed throughout most of the new nation. That odious policy required believers and non-believers alike to contribute to the financial support of the officially approved religious institution, which, in Virginia, was what is today the Episcopal Church. The state possessed and often exercised certain regulatory powers that made it difficult for other churches to function.
Presbyterians and other dissenting Christians felt they owed their allegiance to an authority higher than the state. Under the leadership of Samuel Davies, Polegreen Presbyterian Church in Hanover County — now part of the Richmond metropolitan area — became a center of worship and activity for dissenters. With them in spirit, Baptists and Methodists waged their own crusades for freedom. Many ministers, especially Baptists, who were jailed for defying the state licensing process for clergymen continued to preach from their cells.
Among those who heard and applauded the dissenters’ message were two of the most influential men in America: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. To Jefferson, governmental interference in religious matters was a pernicious abuse of power. People should be free to believe and worship as they wish, he insisted, as long as their views and practices did not injure others.
In 1779, Jefferson introduced a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in the Virginia General Assembly. There it languished, in a skeptical and even hostile atmosphere, for years and was pending when Jefferson left for Paris in 1784. At that point, Madison stepped forward to carry on the fight.
Madison managed to spur the legislature to act on the proposal by using one of the most effective of all political tools: public pressure. He obtained the signatures of about 11,000 citizens on a petition endorsing the concept of religious freedom, a message that prudent politicians could not ignore. The General Assembly responded by approving Jefferson’s bill on January 16, 1786.
“… No man,” says the statute, “shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
Enactment of that law was an epochal event that established the precedent for America’s eventual commitment, through the Bill of Rights, to the principle of religious freedom for all Americans. Jefferson considered his authorship of the statute to be one of his three most significant accomplishments, writing the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia being the other two.
Polegreen church is only a few miles from Richmond’s Convention Center-Coliseum complex in which Presbyterians will meet this month. Even closer is the site of the old state capital in which legislators voted to free Virginia’s churches from state control. On that location, at 14th and Cary streets, the Council for America’s First Freedom plans to erect a center to house the statute and offer educational programs to inform people about the history and supreme importance of this law. Composed of representatives of numerous faiths, the council hopes the facility will become “a living center for the study of religious freedom. A place where Americans and people from all over the world can learn and understand its message of peace, conciliation and freedom of conscience.”
Delegates to the Presbyterian Assembly meeting in Richmond in 1847 were close enough in time to the era of the state church to be keenly aware of the value of the freedom they were exercising. By visiting Polegreen church and the site of the old state capitol, delegates to this year’s Assembly may heighten their appreciation of “America’s First Freedom” and of the contributions of those brave and enlightened men and women who made it a reality. Because of the efforts of these early American Christians, all religious groups — Christian and non-Christian — can worship without fear of state interference.
