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Anne Hutchinson, 20 July 1591 – August 1643, was
despised for her quick mind, her ability to think on her feet and her
willingness to defy university-trained theologians. She was unflinching, though
she had a premonition of danger to come. She lived four-fifths of her life in
her native England but is world famous for her years in early colonial America.
She was a woman of valor. She persuaded scores of families to leave their
homes, businesses, the church that was their ticket to eternal life, and to
create a new colony in the wilderness.
The new community she inspired and co-founded
was the first of its kind in the Western world, a secular democracy made of
people of strong moral principles and enlightened views on human and civil
rights.
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| Anne Hutchinson memorial at the Massachusetts State House in Boston. Photo by Christy K Robinson, 20 July 2016. |
Religious liberty for all is the freedom to
believe and act one’s conscience, even if the majority disagrees with an
individual or group. It’s not freedom or justice for all if some are excluded
for their belief – or their non-belief.
In the United States, besides those who do not
believe in a god or higher power, there are approximately 2,000 religious
sects, and the variety of adherence and buy-in to their individual creed or
dogma runs from weak to strong. Infinite variety! Who gets to choose which
strain gets prominence or receives government financial support?
It’s not freedom for one branch of believers to
have privileges from the government while others are denied based on their
religious beliefs, or their choice to not believe in any religious system.
Because Anne Hutchinson
and Mary Dyer, Roger Williams and John Clarke, and almost every co-founder of
Rhode Island, were very religious people (zealous Puritans, Antinomians,
Baptists, Quakers, etc.) who sacrificed worldly goods and even their lives for
their faith in God, we might think of these “Founders before the Founders” as
desirous of a religious utopia in the New World.
Not. At. All.
They’d faced religious
persecution by their governments in Europe, to such a degree that they’d fled
to the wilds of North America. But the people who governed the new society were
theocrats who based their laws in the Old Testament laws given to the
Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai. Ministers and magistrates locked arms
and wills to accuse and prosecute, imprison, torture, and execute in the name
of God. This marriage of religion and government is called theocracy.
Williams, the Hutchinsons, the Dyers,
and scores of others were banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony, reviled as
heretics, and ridiculed for the rest of their lives, for insisting on liberty
of conscience and separation of church and state. In the 1630s, though they
believed and practiced their deep faith, they were the first people in Western
civilization to form a secular (non-religious) government. They insisted on it,
to the degree that religious liberty is encoded in the charter (constitution) of Rhode Island, which
was central to the formation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution in
the next century.
The problem is not that people have strong religious
beliefs. The problem is enforcing one set of beliefs on another
person or a community, or discriminating against another because of their beliefs
or behaviors.
Liberty of conscience is
what Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams and John Clarke lived for, and in Mary
Dyer’s case, died for. They didn’t impose their beliefs on others, but
advocated for the full rights of others. They were the great-great grandparents
of the revolutionaries of the United States and authors of its Constitution –
which is by design a secular document.
Even today, our rights to freedom of religion and
freedom from oppression are under sneak attack. As an admirer or descendant of
Anne Hutchinson or Mary Dyer, I hope you will work to protect the rights of all
people, as fought for by our first
founders, Roger Williams, William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson, Richard and
Katherine Marbury Scott, William and Mary Dyer, John Clarke, and many others.
It’s a never-ending struggle in every
government agency, every state and territory, and every municipality, to allow
freedom for all, and not just freedom for the powerful.
“Those who would
renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a
difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for
one that has served others so poorly?” – Sandra Day O’Connor, conservative
Supreme Court Justice.
Join Anne Hutchinson in support of liberty.
Anne Hutchinson (nonfiction) biography: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0692190813/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Endorsements of the book, Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother:
“Anne Marbury Hutchinson
is a woefully unsung giant in the creation of secular democracy. Christy K Robinson's book goes a very
long way toward refreshing the historical record of genuine religious freedom
in America. She does so in a style
both scholarly and eminently readable.
It took 350 years for Hutchinson to be pardoned for her ‘crimes’ which
amounted only to defying theological orthodoxy and the authority of male
clerics. Through this work,
Robinson makes it abundantly clear that people make real social change through
the lessons of the very lives they live.
Best we remember that today.”
Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Former Executive Director,
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
“The tone is perfect and
is the way that history should be written. The author’s voice speaks directly
to the reader with humor, real content with wise use of original documents, and
access to the personalities through those documents. She masterfully weaves the
documents together with 21st-century English.”
Rose A. Doherty, President Emerita, The
Partnership of the Historic Bostons
“An impressive
accomplishment. Christy Robinson’s exhaustively researched account gives Anne
Hutchinson her due as a martyr for religious freedom. Too many Americans today
don’t know Anne’s story; this book will go a long way to correct that.”
Rob Boston, Editor, Church & State magazine
“There are people who can
research, and people who can write, and people who can break down the barriers
of historical distance. Then there are those that allow us into hearts and
minds from the past. Christy Robinson does all of those things. You’ll love
coming to know Mother Anne and her times through this penetrating work.”
Devin D. Marks, Founding Trustee, The Anne Marbury
Hutchinson Foundation; Founder and President, My TED Talks
“A carefully researched
accessible account of Anne Hutchinson’s remarkable life. Christy’s beautiful
conversational style helps bring Anne’s story alive and makes early ‘Puritan’
theological differences much clearer. This book will make so many more people
aware of her importance here in England.”
Rev. Ros Latham, Vicar, St. Wilfrid’s Church of
England, Alford, Lincolnshire
