{"id":135,"date":"2011-09-23T04:45:45","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T04:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/?p=135"},"modified":"2011-09-20T15:26:33","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T15:26:33","slug":"a-garden-in-the-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html","title":{"rendered":"A Garden in the Wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/295\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-118\" style=\"border: 2px solid black;margin: 2px\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/295\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg\" alt=\"The Jesus Tribe\" width=\"213\" height=\"213\" \/><\/a>Roger Williams arrived in Massachusetts almost four centuries ago, just a decade after the first Pilgrims disembarked from the <em>Mayflower<\/em>. He joined that Puritan effort to build a \u201ccity on a hill,\u201d to prove to the nations of the world how God\u2019s people should live. How did things go for Roger? Not so good. He never got that Puritan thing figured out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">After beginning his role as pastor of the church at Salem, Massachusetts, it didn\u2019t take long for Williams\u2019 sermons to ignite an inferno of controversy. He was quickly branded as a heretic, persecuted by the government, put in constant fear for his life, forced to evade deportation back to Europe, and eventually exiled into the New England winter, an exile that remained law on the Massachusetts books until 1936.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">What caused Roger so much trouble in the New World? He relentlessly preached liberty of conscience and believed that an individual should have the freedom to choose his or her religious expression, even the right to choose no religion at all. Roger Williams believed in the revolutionary idea that there should be a separation between church and state.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">This was a novel idea four hundred years ago. In some circles it still is. Yet, Roger Williams believed in it and practiced it. Rhode Island, the tiny colony he eventually formed, became a safe haven for some of the first Jews, Quakers, Baptists, and other religious dissidents coming to the New World.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Williams didn\u2019t share the beliefs of these variegated groups and often debated with them publically. But he believed they had the God-given right to practice faith as they saw fit, without outside interference.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Using a metaphor that should be repeated in our own day, Williams said the church was like \u201ca garden.\u201d Everything that was aligned with self-seeking power \u2013 governments, corporations, systems of control \u2013 he called these \u201cthe wilderness.\u201d He believed that those churches that gave up their unique role as witnesses to Christ to join with power, even power that \u201cworked,\u201d were permitting the wilderness to intrude upon the garden.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">As such, these churches would be manipulated, compromising on issues of love, justice, and mercy. Or those same churches would become the manipulators themselves, using civil power to force their beliefs on others. Such force was the worst of spiritual violations, \u201clike compelling an unwilling spouse to enter into a forced bed,\u201d Williams preached.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Either way, when church and state drank from the same cup, it would be the church that would be poisoned. Roger Williams\u2019 counsel to the Christian church in his day is lasting: Learn to live in the world and bear witness to Christ in it, but do not become a part of it. Or he might say, \u201cPlant a garden in a wilderness; but do not bring the wilderness into the garden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">William Willimon strikes a similar chord. Once in an interview he was criticized for holding opinions that led Christians to shirk their social responsibilities and to withdraw from society. He responded that yes, Christians should live out their faith, but they should take great care not to force their faith. Faith should be practiced, Willimon said, \u201clike porcupines making love\u2026very carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">All these years after Williams\u2019 exile, I am thankful that we have the freedom and privilege to live out and practice our faith in this country. But like Williams, I do not believe that those privileges can become tools of coercion and force to accomplish some \u201cspiritual\u201d or Christian end.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Faith is an issue of the heart, not a public policy. Faith can empower believers to light a society with grace, love, goodness, and hope, but faith should not be used as a manipulative weapon in the dark, power-play systems of the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">I know I\u2019m not with the Puritan program either, but standing with Williams I believe that rulers have no right to enforce religion, and religions have no right to enforce rule. To take a different path is to plant the wild and wooly seeds of the wilderness in the garden of faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roger Williams arrived in Massachusetts almost four centuries ago, just a decade after the first Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower. He joined that Puritan effort to build a \u201ccity on a hill,\u201d to prove to the nations of the world how God\u2019s people should live. How did things go for Roger? Not so good. He&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kingdom-of-god","category-the-jesus-tribe"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Garden in the Wilderness - Leaving Salem<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Garden in the Wilderness - Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Roger Williams arrived in Massachusetts almost four centuries ago, just a decade after the first Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower. He joined that Puritan effort to build a \u201ccity on a hill,\u201d to prove to the nations of the world how God\u2019s people should live. How did things go for Roger? Not so good. He&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leaving Salem\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-23T04:45:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-09-20T15:26:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ronniemcbrayer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Garden in the Wilderness - Leaving Salem","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Garden in the Wilderness - Leaving Salem","og_description":"Roger Williams arrived in Massachusetts almost four centuries ago, just a decade after the first Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower. He joined that Puritan effort to build a \u201ccity on a hill,\u201d to prove to the nations of the world how God\u2019s people should live. How did things go for Roger? Not so good. He&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html","og_site_name":"Leaving Salem","article_published_time":"2011-09-23T04:45:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-20T15:26:33+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg"}],"author":"ronniemcbrayer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html","name":"A Garden in the Wilderness - Leaving Salem","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg","datePublished":"2011-09-23T04:45:45+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-20T15:26:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#\/schema\/person\/8d43dc9d6bc43a8f9e7f03adcb07e2d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/leavingsalem\/files\/2011\/09\/JT2.jpeg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/2011\/09\/a-garden-in-the-wilderness.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Garden in the Wilderness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/","name":"Leaving Salem","description":"Beliefnet Voices -- Leaving Salem","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/#\/schema\/person\/8d43dc9d6bc43a8f9e7f03adcb07e2d0","name":"ronniemcbrayer","description":"Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, blogger, and author. His books include \u201cLeaving Religion, Following Jesus\u201d and \u201cThe Jesus Tribe.\u201d Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.me.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.ronniemcbrayer.me"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/author\/ronniemcbrayer"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/leavingsalem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}