Ranters, Diggers, and Levellers

IN THE NEWS
I'm in the middle of reading The World Turned Upside Down, historian Christopher Hill's classic study of the radical religious movements in 17th century Britain. I'm always interested in the religious dimension of revolutionary warfare, and it has been a long time since I last read Hill's book.

Often, when you read a good book again, you walk away with a different set of impressions and conclusions. This time around, I'm struck by Hill's description of how confident these groups were in their beliefs. Although they disagreed on many points, from theology (how individuals achieve salvation) to demonology (who the enemies of salvation are), they shared a common impatience with authority. At the same time that England was founding the colonies that would become the United States, the self-described beacon of liberty in the 21st century, these religious movements--the Diggers, Ranters, Levellers, Fifth Monarchists, Quakers, Seekers, and Grindletonians--were challening the entire religious, political, social, and economic order. Since many of these dissidents became American colonists, you'd be justified to say that the United States was conceived in the womb of English religious radicalism.

Even before the English Civil War, these groups were making themselves felt within British society. Quakers challenged the standard format of religious services, insisting that, after the sermon, members of the congregation should have the right to respond. Levellers believed that every Christian had the right to "prophecy" (in the original Biblical sense of calling the community to task for not ending injustices), but the congregation to which they belonged needed to act as a check against individual error. Diggers, who called themselves "the True Levellers," rejected churches altogether: Gerrard Winstanley, an influential Digger, thought that popular opinion was no less a spiritual prison than the official dictates of a hierarchical, state-controlled church. Grindletonians doubted the historical accuracy of the Bible, and even questioned whether an historical Jesus existed at all. Some Ranters had doubts about the idea of an immortal soul, and their pantheistic leanings led to a Dionysian view of the spiritual life. (If God pervades his creation, why not enjoy life to its fullest?) Some of these groups believed there should be no king, but were comfortable with Parliament; others argued that the Army (particularly Cromwell's New Model Army) was the only part of the state that could wield legitimate power. Many were indifferent to any form of government, as long as it did not try to interfere in an individual's spiritual life. Some sought to lessen or eliminate class differences, restricting the wealth and privileges of the nobility. Others believed that all property should be held in common.

These religious dissidents were fractious, noisy, and riotous. Some, like the Diggers, occupied the estates of nobles when they felt they needed to use the land for themselves. When the nobles complained, the Diggers lectured them on their religious duties to the needy. Quakers argued in public with Episcopalean authorities over basic Christian principles. Pamphleteers accused various leaders--the King, Cromwell, the Duke of Buckingham--of being the Anti-Christ, or his agents. The widespread belief that history may come to an apocalyptic close at any moment rubbed tempers raw. While you might admire the religious dissidents for their open-mindedness and confidence, 17th-century England was a trying place to live.

However, none of the apocalyptic warnings turned out to be true, including the claims of royal, noble, and episcopal claims that the dissidents were going to wreck England. The country survived, and in the long term, the English prospered from the skeptical, anti-authoritarian traditions that the Diggers, Levellers, Quakers, and others expanded beyond anything seen before. Hill repeatedly mentions how the dissidents opened the door to free scientific inquiry, challenging new forms of literature, and more inclusive politics. The dissidents also (perhaps unintentionally) re-invigorated the official Church of England. Bishops and priests had to meet the challenge of the energetic religious radicals with more than claims of authority, back with the armed might of the British monarchy.

Today, Christian orthodoxies are faced with similar challenges. Centuries ago, Baptists argued that no Christian should be baptized until it was possible to make reasoned, voluntary consent. Today, mainstream Baptists reject the idea of applying reason to matters of faith, preferring to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Centuries ago, the Catholic Church punished Galileo, not because the inquisitors believed his science was wrong, but because his scientific publications threatened the Church's claim to absolute truth. Now, the papacy has officially forgiven Galileo--though the discomfort with many scientific conclusions remains.

The challenge to these orthodoxies doesn't come merely from paleontology or evolutionary biology. Biblical archaeology is adding details to our understanding of the world in which Jesus reportedly lived that, in many cases, challenge some basic assumptions about New Testament personalities and stories. For example, recent works like Rabbi Jesus cast early Christianity in a very new and very Jewish light. Careful Biblical scholarship has revealed the ways in which the supposedly inerrant Word of God changed over the centuries, particularly when translators and scribes accidentally or deliberately altered the text.

None of the Christians I know who are interested in contemporary Biblical archaeology or scholarship have lost their faith because of these discoveries. Quite the opposite: Jesus, who had been rendered as almost an alien, unknowable being by early Greek theologians, becomes a far more comprehensible figure. Obvious problems with the Bible (see Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason for a sample list of contradictions and impossibilities) become less of a spiritual and intellectual headache to resolve when the evolution of the Bible becomes clear.

Outrage often drives revolution, but there is no outrage in the calm, deliberate work of evolutionary biologists and Biblical archaeologists. Fear often drives counterrevolution, which is perhaps why many American Christians seem to be fighting against invisible enemies to their faith. Any challenge to a brittle, ossified version of Christianity is as likely today to generate a counterrevolutionary backlash as it did in 17th century England. However, just as the threat to turn the world upside down was vastly overstated then, so too is it overstated now. We already live in an age of considerable religious conflict; we don't need to invent new religious struggles against "enemies" that don't exist, over matters as ridiculous as whether dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden. Christianity, the state, and the social order survived the Diggers, Levellers, Quakers, and Ranters; so, too, will they survive the questioning spirit of the 21st century.

Comments

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