500 Years since Martin Luther started the Prostrstant Reformation movement that became the Protestant (Kirk) church. Interesting reading about the Reformationion Wall in Geneva CH Worth the visit!
This is what the public gets from an uninformed or misinformed tour guide. What kind of an ego would say about Roger Williams, that "he doesn't deserve to even be here?" Maybe this fella should have counselled the people who built the Reformation Wall and straightened them out on their error. For anyone wanting to get an accurate picture of the value and influence of Roger Williams, see; John M. Barry's work, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty. New York: Viking, 2012. Print. Suffice it to say Roger Williams was instrumental if not the pivotal influence that eventuated in the separation of church and state and liberty of conscience in every modern state and nation where it exists. I think it is safe to say, Roger Williams deserves to be remembered in Geneva and around the world.
Our visit was not intended as a pilgrimage of any sort, nor was it particularly focused on these monuments. Rather it was done in the spirit, frequently commended in scripture, or remembering what God has done in the past. Remember, the problem that the Reformers confronted was worship and adoration of images, and direct violations of the 2nd commandment by making images of Christ. We ought not to worship images, though they may serve to remind us of what God did in church history. 1 Samuel 7:12 "Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." Joshua 4:4-7 "Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever." 1 Corinthians 10:1-10 "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; ... Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. ..."
@@DiscerningHistory Thank you for this video. I love church history, and myself left a church which I grew up in, which kept an image of a dove (about 6 ft. in width) above the pulpit area, so that worshipping became a problem in my convictions.
That's a misguided idea. Iconoclasm in churches in the Low Countries occurred without the approval of for instance William the Silent, who then was still Catholic but had sincerely plead for religious tolerance in the years before. Reformed faith doesn't reject depictions, but idolatry and posits sola scriptura for founding the faith.
Roger Williams taught that a 'good conscience' must have freedom 'of the Spirit', which must also be 'bound to the Word of God', as Luther pleaded in Wurms. He did not believe in infant baptism, not proven scripturally to his satisfaction.
Roger Williams "was the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law."--Bancroft, pt. 1, ch. 15, par. 16. Attendance at the services of the established church was required under a penalty of fine or imprisonment. "Williams reprobated the law; the worst statute in the English code was that which did but enforce attendance upon the parish church. To compel men to unite with those of a different creed, he regarded as an open violation of their natural rights; to drag to public worship the irreligious and the unwilling, seemed only like requiring hypocrisy. . . . 'No one should be bound to worship, or,' he added, 'to maintain a worship, against his own consent.' 'What!' exclaimed his antagonists, amazed at his tenets, 'is not the laborer worthy of his hire?' 'Yes,' replied he, 'from them that hire him.'"-- Bancroft, pt. 1, ch. 15, par. 2. The path of the just is as a shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The Reformation is ongoing and progressive. To suggest that Luther, Calvin and Knox, if placed in a future age, would have not adhered to the advancing light is to suppose that Calvin and his associates were not Reformers at all. Calvin a man of integrity, in the shoes of Roger Williams, would have undoubtably accepted God's testing message for that time. One may know many facts about the Reformation and yet still not truly understand the character of the men who led out in its cause.
"Progress" and "reformation" are good, and should be expected to increase in the broad view throughout history. But they are good only in so far as they are defined by scripture. We're not going to present a detailed analysis of Luther and Calvin's views on liberty of conscience, but suffice it to say that the idea of complete freedom of conscience before the civil magistrate were not unknown in their time. They knew of those concepts but rejected them. There's no reason to think that they would have sided with Williams over the Puritans in the 17th century when they didn't side with groups of their day like the Anabaptists on this issue.
@@DiscerningHistory I believe it does stand to reason that Calvin would have accepted the principles that led directly to the Constitution over the theology upon which Canon Law is built (or some hyrid) under different circumstances. God never gives all the light to one man, never. Consequently, where burdens would have been different, the Spirit of God would have pressed this doctrinal position sore upon Calvin. I appreciate the Anabapist line of thinking, yet to that point, I submit to you it is worth being cognizant that the early Anabaptist movement suffered from fanatical elements and episodes. And because human nature is so ignorant and liable to misconception it is plausible that this message for Luther may have been hard to receive from an Anabaptist source. Especially in light of the fact that Luther struggled to receive a better interpretation of the Lord's Supper from even Zwingli. Luther's character had it been revealed in the vicisitudes which Roger Williams's convictions brought upon himself, the below words would be attributed to Luther and not Williams. "For fourteen weeks," he says, "I was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean." But "the ravens fed me in the wilderness," and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter.--Martyn, vol. 5, pp. 349, 350. As large as it is, the work that the Colony of Rhode Island contributed to the work of Christ should not be lost sight of in the shadow of Geneva.
