On a cool, damp Sunday evening in October, a small crowd gathered under the white steel beams that define the footprint of the Historic Polegreen Church in Hanover County, Va., site of one of the first four non-Anglican meeting houses officially licensed by the royal governor in 1743.
The occasion, Voices of Conscience, commemorated the 250th anniversary of the “10,000 Baptist Petition, The Dissenters’ Petition,” delivered to the Virginia General Assembly Oct. 16, 1776, as an appeal for religious liberty without government interference.
Signed by nearly 10,000 Virginians, mostly Baptists and all men, the ardor for “A Petition for Equal Liberty” was fueled by the Declaration of Rights that had passed the Virginia Revolutionary Convention in June 1776 which included an article for the free exercise of religion.
Lynette Hundley Loftus
The transcription of the petition reads:
To the Honourable the President and House of Delegates the petition of the Dissenters from the Ecclesiastical Establishment, in the Common-wealth humbly sheweth
Your Petitioners, being (in Common with the other inhabitants of this Commonwealth), delivered from British Oppression, rejoice in the Prospect of having their Freedom secured and maintained to them and their posterity inviolate. The hopes of your petitioners have been raised and confirmed by the Declaration of your Honourable House with regard to equal Liberty. Equal Liberty! that invaluable Blessing; which though it be the Birthright of every good Member of the State, is what your Petitioners have been deprived of; in that, by taxation, their property hath been wrested from them and given to those from whom they receive no equivalent. Your petitioners therefore having long groaned under the Burden of an ecclesiastical Establishment beg leave to move your Honourable House that this as well as every other Yoke may be broken, and that the Oppressed may go free that so every religious Denomination being on a Level, Animosities may cease and that Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity may be practiced towards each other, while the Legislature interferes only to support them in their just Rights and equal Priveliges.
And your Petitioners shall ever pray.
Since the founding of the colony in 1607, Virginians had been required to attend and financially support the Church of England. Those who did not — Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists among others — were labeled dissenters and endured much hardship and harassment, including confiscation of properties, fines, floggings and even jail.
The cost for exercising freedom of conscience was high. But that did not stop ordinary men from meeting in secret for Bible reading and study. Samuel Morris of Hanover County was only one man, but his faith and perseverance led to the eventual establishment of that first licensed meeting house and the arrival of its first pastor, Samuel Davies. Only 23 years old, Davies was the first non-Anglican minister to be licensed to preach in Virginia.
As the recent commemoration progressed, Presbyterian, Baptist and Episcopal faith leaders spoke of the courage of these Virginians who took a stand for religious liberty. Like Joshua and Esther in the Old Testament, the petitioners knew they had to be strong for such a time as this. They recognized that true liberty had to unbind religion from government interference.
“It would be 10 years and many more petitions before the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom became law on January 16, 1786.”
By signing their names to this petition, they were no longer anonymous bystanders but active participants, thousands of founding fathers who receive no credit yet were vital to the success of the cause for freedom of religion. It would be 10 years and many more petitions before the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom became law on January 16, 1786, guaranteeing Virginians could worship as they pleased, or not, according to the dictates of their conscience without government intrusion.
The idea that our country was founded to be a “Christian nation” is not supported by our history or by the words of the leaders of that day even though some today argue that was their original intent.
“Voices of Conscience” event at Historid Polegreen Church (Photo courtesy of Historic Polegreen Church Foundation)
I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another. — Thomas Jefferson
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. — James Madison
I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience. — George Washington
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion… . — John Adams
Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion. — John Adams
Conscience is the most sacred of all property. — James Madison
Using the government to interfere with or empower one religion over another did not work to further God’s kingdom in 1776 and it does not work today. It causes more harm than any good that could possibly come from it.
As darkness began to settle over the crowd, the evening ended in candlelight, each person holding a single flame, to me a symbol of the light that is possible within each of us. Words of rededication and recommitment to religious liberty echoed those penned long ago yet still resonate as a cause worth fighting for.
What will be the cost when that liberty is threatened? Am I — are we — willing to take a stand for all religious expression and not just my own? Will I have the courage to say, “I dissent”?
Lynette Hundley Loftus is retired after a 44-year career in nursing. She lives with her husband in Chester, Va., where she spends her days pulling weeds and trying to be a good neighbor.